With its jaunty alliteration and on-the-nose allusion to the iconic puzzle books, it’s clear from the outset that Where’s Wanda? is not going to be an entirely serious missing-person drama. The first original German-language series from Apple TV+ chronicles Dedo and Carlotta Klatt’s desperate and increasingly illegal search for their 17-year-old daughter: it has been months since she disappeared, and day 100 – the point at which the chances of finding her alive tumble to just 10% – is on the horizon. Yet, the Klatts’ nightmare soon becomes a farcical caper, as they decide their best bet is to surreptitiously bug all the houses in their (mercifully tiny) home town of Sundersheim to check if their daughter is being held captive. Cue outlandish lies, ridiculous distraction techniques and a surprising amount of snake-based slapstick. Meanwhile, Wanda’s sardonic voiceover riffs on the tired tropes of missing-teenager stories in archly meta fashion.
At first, this makes for a rather strange watch. The fusion of dark crime thriller and riotous humour has proven extremely successful in recent years (see everything from Bad Sisters to Only Murders in the Building), but the horror of Wanda’s disappearance does make the combination less immediately appealing – especially given the glimpses we get into Carlotta’s inner turmoil. Her outbursts of fury and despair are conveyed with convincing ferocity by Heike Makatsch (who British viewers might recognise from Love Actually; she played Alan Rickman’s flirtatious, sleekly bob-haired secretary, Mia), yet it’s not long before we are thrust back into the comic realm via a disastrous break-in or ridiculous TV re-enactment of the morning Wanda (Lea Drinda) was last seen.
