basics...
From the country, channel and even some of the cast who brought us the awesome Forbrydelsen comes a Danish hybrid of The West Wing (one of the best TV shows ever) and Commander-in-Chief (one of those shows that US channels like to cull before they reach a full season, this one was a sub-West Wing melodrama with Geena Davis as the first female US President) that sees Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen) take up the post of Denmark's first female Prime Minister and leader of a shaky coalition government.
brilliant...
Another winner from the Danes! And another strong female lead to rival Sarah Lund in the tough yet human form of Birgitte Nyborg. The show has The West Wing's sense of drama, political insight, and hot button current issues, plus Commander-in-Chief's female in charge premise, along with that show's propensity to fire a staff member seemingly each week (so I've no idea why Borgen is to be remade in the US, it's already been done!). It also has a wry sense of humour, real tension and believable characters. Birgitte has to juggle life as PM with her slowly unravelling marriage - to none-other than Sarah Lund's partner/villain from Forbrydelsen II! - and it is a credit to Borgen that although the fissures are there early and you fear that they may actually come to blows, the storyline never feels forced or soapy, it's natural and understandable, and both characters are so real you route for them both. Nyborg's cabinet (including Theis Birk Larsen as defence minister!) are a motley crew and it's particularly interesting to see how coalition politics, so common all over the world except in UK, works and using it as a mirror with our current government. The other lead characters are Joshua Jackson-lookalike Kasper Juul (Pilou Asbæk), Birgitte's spin doctor, and TV1 anchorwoman and wannabe-investigative journalist Katrine (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen). Neither was as easily likable as Birgitte to begin with - he was a bit of a slime ball and she was irritatingly grief-stricken, but both blossomed into key elements of the Borgen whole, with the government's relationship with the media playing a particularly important part in Denmark's political life. And Katrine's boss is only Lund's first partner, Jan Meyer (Søren Malling), but much funnier here. The plots were mostly self-contained in each of the 10 episodes but there were many long-running threads, and the nature of the storylines - dealing with terrorism, racism and the sovereignty of Greenland - were suitably topical and explored some very interesting ideas.
briefly...
Intelligent, thought-provoking, funny, dramatic, emotional, topical... quite simply one of the best dramas I've seen.
The Christmas / New Year period was fairly busy for some reason, and it's only since this last weekend I've been able to unwind, at least that's how it feels. So I'm going to do a quick catch up on the stuff I've been watching and reading to bring me up to date to start the new year.
Back at the end of 2011 I loved every minute of Forbrydelsen II / The Killing II (2009). While not as long or perhaps as compelling as the first series, the second still held my rapt attention. Sarah Lund returned to Copenhagen to track a series of killings involving the army and incident in Afghanistan many years before. Grisly murder scenes and lots of pensive Lund moments mixed with new politician Thomas Buch's investigations into his predecessor's conduct as Justice Minister combined for some pretty exciting TV. I did not see the ending coming AT ALL and it was super intense. The intelligent way that The Killing handles plot, character and drama makes it one of my favourite show of the year. Roll on series 3!
Another returning series was Merlin: Series 4, which kicked things up a notch early on by dispatching Uther (and Lancelot) and crowning Arthur King of Camelot, before treading water with some ho-hum warlock-of-the-week episodes before shifting gear again on the overarching plot and marrying off the new king to Gwen. Still no sign of Merlin revealing his magical secret to his best mate and boss, but there were more interesting developments that almost got forgotten in the final episode of the series when the boy magician finished off evil Agravaine! I'm sure that's going to come back to haunt Merlin and add some angst to series 5.
The small yet perfectly formed Rev came back with a new series that saw some big name guest stars in Reverend Adam Smallbone's tiny congregation. Still funny, endearing and often unexpectedly, refreshingly rude, Rev still feels like a hidden gem.
While in Crewe for New Year I had the 'pleasure' of watching a few bits and pieces on my in-laws' new 3D TV, including some Kylie concert, a bit of a CGI movie and a whole programme in the form of nature documentary The Bachelor King 3D. Narrated by Sir David Attenborough the over-long one off followed the life and times of a king penguin - at least it purported to do, until the closing credits revealed that the penguin lead was actually 'played' by several different birds. The 3D was a nice touch, but as I've said before, watching something in 3 dimensions does not improve the actual experience. It's a novelty and nothing more, and after 75 minutes with heavy 3D glasses it's also a bit of a headache. The programme was good, though didn't shed any new light on the lives of a well-documented species.
TV short Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas was charming though distinctly odd. I understand the conceit of talking mammoths, sloths, etc, but I just cannot credit the presence of a human Santa Claus or the very notion of Christian Christmas many thousands (millions?) of years too early. I know it's a kids' holiday special but come on! Paradoxes aside, the short was a lot of fun and made me want to finally watch the movie sequels to the not-quite-classic-but-better-than-most-cgi-movies original.
I found time to read a couple of books over Christmas. The first I actually received as a gift last year, The Interrogative Mood (2010) by Padgett Powell. A bizarre 'novel' constructed entirely throughout its 164 pages by a random string of questions. It's an odd beast, and not really my idea of a novel, but it's hardly non-fiction either. Occasionally there seem to be groups of questions that link but there is no connected through-line. Strangely the overall impression of the book is that whatever it is, it works. It really has to be read to be believed.
More straightforward was Kate Mosse's Labyrinth (2005), an epic grail quest that feels incredibly sedate compared to the Da Vinci Code. I say grail quest, it's not until the last third of the novel that the relic evens merits a mention. Before that the story is split between Alice in the present and Alaïs in the 13th century as the former pieces together bits of the life of the latter until both narratives cleverly converge in the same cave in the French Pyrenees. I rarely had this book out of my hands over New Year, I very much relished the dual-narrative style, the subject matter and the wonderfully drawn characters. I particularly liked Alaïs' experiences in a foreign country and a dim and distant past for the fact that both aspects of her life were so different and original. Where Dan Brown's book felt like a thriller for the MTV generation, Labyrinth was more like a 20 part Danish drama, slowly unfolding over time to reveal a deftly plotted adventure.
The Killing is quite possibly the best drama ever to be shown on British TV, so it's a little odd that the whole thing is Danish in origin! Featuring one single murder investigation, following the death of young Nanna Birk Larsen, the show has kept us riveted for the last 10 weeks - I'm so glad the BBC has been showing them in double bills to allow us to watch one episode after another.
The cast are uniformly excellent, and from one scene to another my favourite changes, and then changes again, from the stoic, gum-chewing, jumper-wearing police heroine Sara Lund, to the heartbreaking eyes of Pernille Birk Larsen, the grieving mother or Theis Birk Larsen the troubled father, both of whom hold so much simmering beneath the surface and say so much with their faces. Lund's begrudging partner Jan Meyer is gleefully grumpy, but as he learns to respect Lund and her methods, he thaws and becomes a really likable character, so when his time in the story comes so suddenly it's a massive shock, and I didn't believe it at all!
And then there's the other half of the story, following the mayoral campaign of Troels Hartman who becomes embroiled in the murder investigation at various points, along with his sneaky sidekicks Rie and Morten. Oh and the wonderful Bremer, current mayor and possessor of flexible morals. While this half of the story perhaps didn't have the same emotional punch as the investigation, except where the two intertwined (which was most of the time), it was still a thrilling watch.
As new evidence came to the fore, each episode, which more or less followed a 24 hour period each, threw up new suspects in the case. Red herrings, lies and suspicion abounded, while Lund and co all kept it real and had a distinctly 'un-Hollywood' approach to police work. So much worked unspoken, with not a boring second to be found. Revelations worked, characters acted within the bounds of their emotions and did things you didn't want them to do but knew they would.
I'm going to avoid the American remake, it just can't be this good. I think one of the reason's it's great is that the actors are unfamiliar, thus it is much easier to suspend disbelief and 'forget' these characters aren't real and lose yourself in their lives. The Killing ranks in my top 10 best shows, and it is with feverish anticipation that I look forward to the second series on BBC4 later in the year.
Another winner from the Danes! And another strong female lead to rival Sarah Lund in the tough yet human form of Birgitte Nyborg. The show has The West Wing's sense of drama, political insight, and hot button current issues, plus Commander-in-Chief's female in charge premise, along with that show's propensity to fire a staff member seemingly each week (so I've no idea why Borgen is to be remade in the US, it's already been done!). It also has a wry sense of humour, real tension and believable characters. Birgitte has to juggle life as PM with her slowly unravelling marriage - to none-other than Sarah Lund's partner/villain from Forbrydelsen II! - and it is a credit to Borgen that although the fissures are there early and you fear that they may actually come to blows, the storyline never feels forced or soapy, it's natural and understandable, and both characters are so real you route for them both. Nyborg's cabinet (including Theis Birk Larsen as defence minister!) are a motley crew and it's particularly interesting to see how coalition politics, so common all over the world except in UK, works and using it as a mirror with our current government. The other lead characters are Joshua Jackson-lookalike Kasper Juul (Pilou Asbæk), Birgitte's spin doctor, and TV1 anchorwoman and wannabe-investigative journalist Katrine (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen). Neither was as easily likable as Birgitte to begin with - he was a bit of a slime ball and she was irritatingly grief-stricken, but both blossomed into key elements of the Borgen whole, with the government's relationship with the media playing a particularly important part in Denmark's political life. And Katrine's boss is only Lund's first partner, Jan Meyer (Søren Malling), but much funnier here. The plots were mostly self-contained in each of the 10 episodes but there were many long-running threads, and the nature of the storylines - dealing with terrorism, racism and the sovereignty of Greenland - were suitably topical and explored some very interesting ideas. 
