James Yaffe (1927–2017) was an American playwright and screenwriter who remained a lifelong fan of detective fiction across both page and screen. He is perhaps best known for his “Department of Impossible Crimes” stories and the humorous “Mom” series, in which a New York detective’s widowed mother uses her experience and knowledge of human nature to solve his most baffling cases.
Yaffe chose to adapt Dürrenmatt’s novella “Die Panne” because it offered a perfect fusion of his favourite themes, a psychological “locked-room” scenario where the line between a harmless game and a lethal trial becomes almost indistinguishable.

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990) wrote the original “Die Panne” to examine the absurdity of justice and to explore the fragile boundary between a seemingly harmless life and the latent guilt hidden within the modern everyman.
It serves as a criticism of how modern individuals strip moral gravity from their actions, transforming their personal culpability into a detached and grotesque theatrical performance. He illustrates that the banality of evil persists precisely because society prioritises the comfort of the status quo over the uncomfortable recognition of genuine guilt and that true guilt is not a matter of legal code but a profound existential realisation.