Surveillance as power is situated in this paper within the broader contextual framework of Germany’s television series Tatort (Crime scene) and assessed via close textual analysis of two contemporary episodes,“Schlafende Hunde”(Sleeping dogs, 2010) and “Auf der Sonnenseite”(On the sunny side, 2008). Both episodes demonstrate the disruption of the established dichotomies of surveillance power structures, revealing the ambivalences of the surveillance state and its individually comprised components. The viewer, too, cannot be left outside of the constellation of surveillance power and, equally, bears responsibility in the assertion of it, while simultaneously being disciplined by it.