The series concerns a worldwide pandemic as it affects the residents of the fictional German island Sløborn located in the North Sea.

The first season was filmed before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, and debuted on the German ZDFneo channel in July 2020.

The title of the show is a play on the English phrase "slow burn", for a story that takes time to develop, which is most apparent in the first season of the show as the teenagers and adults on the island deal with more ordinary challenges of life as the "Taubengrippe" (Pigeon flu) begins to change their world.

The use of the "ø" in the title, a Scandinavian letter used in Danish, conveys that the fictional island is in a border area of Germany and Denmark.

The primary cast includes Emily Kusche, Alexander Scheer, Mads Hjulmand, Lea van Acken Karla Nina Diedrich, Adrian Grünewald, and Wotan Wilke Möhring.