Borgen

Borgen means 'fortress' in Danish, and is the word used to describe the Danish legislative assembly in Copenhagen. Danish national television has produced a riveting political drama about power, the cut and thrust of politics, the alliances - lasting, intermittent, or evanescent - among key players; the betrayals, love affairs, hate affairs, family dynamics and personalities in Danish politics and the media that report on and analyze political events. The leading characters in the drama are the prime minister, her husband and two children (an adolescent daughter and a small boy); her 'spin doctor' and an elder statesman/mentor; an ambitious, intelligent and attractive TV journalist, her boss and her colleagues; key players in other political parties, leaders of industry, commerce, the armed services and other sectors of society that interact with elected officials. The ten one-hour programs of the first series include both ongoing stories of the evolving, ever-changing political scene and self-contained stories that usually reach resolution by the end of that episode - though some probably will come back later to bite the protagonists in the bum. At the end of the final episode of the first season, the idealistic prime minister's marriage has broken up. Her husband has asked for a divorce and the two children are becoming alienated from her because she has been unable to balance the perpetual crises of political life with her previously harmonious family life. Complex and difficult ethical problems are presented with clarity and compassion, including freedom of choice versus right to life; clashing values of male chauvinists and well educated articulate feminists; several kinds of conflicts of interest, and culture clashes between urbane and sophisticated Danes in Denmark and deeply held traditional beliefs of Inuit peoples in the former colony now client state Greenland. The prime minister has had to jettison her old friend and mentor who has been her finance minister in order to save the coalition government she leads, and her rather fragile coalition seems to be fragmenting in spite of this personal and political sacrifice. My bare-bones description of parts of the plot make it sound like kitsch. It's far from it! This miniseries is a very well constructed drama, played by excellent actors. The crisp Danish dialogue appears in easily legible English subtitles. Many threads of the plot are unresolved at the end of the first season's ten episodes, and I am looking forward to the second and third seasons where I anticipate some, perhaps most loose ends, will be tidied up, although no doubt other complex problems and issues will arise.  This is that extremely rare experience, very thoughtful TV drama for intelligent grown-ups. I highly recommend this series. 

I rented it from Glebe Video; it's probably available elsewhere, e.g. Ottawa Public Library.