“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” A salient quote from one of history’s great thinkers leads off each episode of the terrific Danish political drama, Borgen. Originally, a DR production (the Danish public broadcast company that previously produced The Killing), Borgen is “The Castle,” the informal name of the Christiansborg Palace, home to the Danish government. Its first three seasons of 10 episodes each seemingly wrapped up in 2013. In 2022, to the delight of many, Netflix brought it back for an eight-episode encore with the title Borgen: Power and Glory. (All four seasons are available on Netflix.)
Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Knudsen) becomes the first female Prime Minister of Denmark. She’s a minor left-center politician who surprisingly ends up on top as the compromise candidate thanks to her exceptional deal-making skills and Denmark’s coalition-based parliamentary democracy. Similar to what we see in England and Israel with never-ending battles across multiple party lines to maintain alliances. It can be a shaky structure; new elections are called at a moment’s notice and held three weeks later! The parties are fictional in Borgen, as are the broadcasters and newspapers, but all have real-life equivalents. It’s probably a combination of life in Denmark and that the first three seasons are set in the early 2010s, but a handful of traditional media outlets – TV networks and printed newspapers – have a huge influence over Danish politics and its public perception. Borgen brings to life the drama and suspense of daily politics in Denmark. Not just in Denmark; the series has uncanny timeliness and mirrors policy questions facing other western democracies.
Knudsen is fantastic as she navigates the political maze while struggling to maintain her marriage and spend time with her children. You can’t help but notice that the male ministers in Borgen don’t seem as bothered by life balance dilemmas. Kasper (Pilou Asbaek), her spin doctor (they call it what it is), throws himself into protecting Birgitte’s public image 24 hours a day while avoiding his own horrific childhood trauma. Katrine (Birgitte Sorensen) is the anchor for Copenhagen’s #1 news channel. She and Kasper have conflicting goals professionally and a volatile relationship personally. Torben (Soren Malling, the lead in HBO’s limited series The Investigation) runs the news division trying to thread the needle between journalistic integrity and the corporate pressure for good ratings. His personal life is a mess, too. The series is a spirited mix of personal quandaries and inside politics. Somewhere in the middle between the idealism of West Wing and the brutal manipulation of House of Cards (in Borgen, people aren’t killed for political advancement as in House of Cards).
Nine years later, Birgitte, Katrine, and Torben are still entrenched in the world of politics and media. The discovery of significant oil reserves in Greenland is the overarching storyline in Borgen: Power and Glory. (The world’s largest island is part of the Kingdon of Denmark.) The oil is located in an environmentally sensitive area and drilling for it conflicts directly with Denmark’s climate change goals. Conversely, the oil could be worth billions of dollars; energy security and wealth-generating for Denmark and life changing for the indigenous Inuit of Greenland. And fundamentally, is it Denmark’s oil or Greenland’s? In a show about compromise – in politics and home life – an agreeable settlement on the staggering discord associated with oil extraction in Greenland may not be possible. And the Russians are involved…
D² Rating ◼◼◼◼☐
Trivia: Who said the quote at the beginning of this post?
Answer: Winston Churchill