Rating: *****
One could go on and on about how lovely Scandinavia must be, and, ‘my word, isn’t Sidse Babett Knudsen this year’s Sofie Gråbøl (and what a shame she doesn’t have a knit sweater to match)’, and, most importantly, ‘aren’t we terribly enlightened for watching television with subtitles,’ but these statements not only belittle BBC Four’s newest Danish darling, but they subsequently fail to elucidate the sheer spectacular and gripping storytelling found in Borgen – the latest drama from the team that brought us The Killing.
Borgen, or more boringly translated Government, is the story of those who work in The Castle – the titles more literal translation – containing the three branches of Danish government. At the centre of the drama is Moderate party leader Birgitte Nyborg, played by the beautiful Knudsen, who, with a stoic yet vulnerable demeanour reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica’s Laura Roslin, accidentally becomes Denmark’s Statsminister (Prime Minister). Steadfastly flanked by her media advisor, Kaspar Juhl (Pilou Asbæk), she navigates the tumultuous world of coalition governance as the first woman to lead Denmark, while trying to hold together her home life – a rocky marriage with former CEO Philip Christensen (Mikael Birkkjær), and her two children.
What makes Borgen stand out from the already wonderful likes of the West Wing, is the near equal amount of screen-time given to the Danish newsmedia, as represented by Katrine Fønsmark (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen), an investigative journalist chained to the anchor desk, who also happens to be Kaspar’s on again/off again girlfriend. Embittered and disgraced former Labour leader Michael Laugessen (Peter Mygind) becomes editor-in-chief of the Ekspres—a tabloid that might as well be called News of the World.
These carefully crafted and perfectly portrayed characters in the worlds of governance and media generate some of the best stories seen on British airwaves in years. Needless to say, with the perfect balance of humour and drama in the first two episodes that aired on BBC Four last Saturday night, we were utterly hooked. There’s nothing quite so dryly funny as a soon-to-be Prime Minister waiting to meet with the Queen, only to call the reigning monarch a bitch as a royal assistant arrives to usher her in.
The only unfortunate aspect of Borgen is the terribly clunky manner in which Nyborg rises to power. Similar to Geena Davis’s character in American drama Commander-in-Chief, who is promoted from VP to President when her superior dies of a freak heart attack, Nyborg becomes Prime Minister by default – only when the the Labour and Liberal party leaders self-implode in a debate on the eve of an election. The cynics in us recognise that this is how things actually happen, but there’s a twinge of idealism that makes us wish an audience should be asked to believe that a woman could become the head of a government in a less haphazard way.
Like the West Wing, Borgen near perfectly presents us with the sometimes brutal, sometimes hilarious and occasionally honest heightened reality of Government in a foreign land that, although different from our own, hits close enough to home that we wait with tongues dangling for what comes next. Luckily for us, the second season has already aired in Denmark and a third is in pipeline. Who needs to spend Saturday night out anyway?
Borgen airs Saturday nights at 21.00 with a second episode directly following at 22.00 on BBC Four. The first two episodes are still available on the BBC iPlayer.
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