Borgen
For the last five years, I’ve been trying to get people to watch Borgen, the Danish political drama. It was a hit in Denmark, where it debuted in 2010, and then became a hit in the UK, so I felt late to the game when I first read about the show sometime in 2017. At the time, I was deep into making The West Wing Weekly, a podcast I co-hosted with my friend Joshua Malina (who starred in The West Wing), and though I loved The West Wing, I’d seen it—a lot—so I was thrilled to find a new show I could love in the same way.
Borgen is not the same as The West Wing, though. It does share some qualities: it’s a show about government, and in particular, the character of Birgitte Nyborg, Denmark’s first female Prime Minister. At the time, a female Prime Minister was a fictional idea, and perhaps, like The West Wing, seen as a liberal fantasy. (Denmark’s actual first female Prime Minister was elected a year later, in 2011.)
Birgitte Nyborg is one of the great characters of television history. Unlike some of the characters on The West Wing, who sometimes seem to have superhuman intellect and powers of articulation, Borgen’s hero is very human. She’s a mother of two, and her kids are kind of a mess. Her stay-at-home husband is extremely kind and handsome, so there is some TV fantasy still in there, but even that situation evolves over the seasons of the show to become a relationship that feels grounded in reality. Birgitte is somehow even more aspirational of a figure because of her complex humanity; she wants to lead, she wants power for her political party, but she wants to use it in a virtuous way. The need for compromise and collaboration are often at the center of the plots because Denmark has a parliament, and Birgitte has to operate within the confines of a coalition government. The show ran for three seasons, from 2010-2013, and I watched it all in 2017 over a matter of days.
For a few years after that, I would shout about Borgen at anyone who paused long enough in my vicinity, but the only way to watch it in the US was to buy the three seasons on iTunes, which made it a tough sell. And then in 2020, Netflix announced there would be a new, fourth season of Borgen, and brought the show onto the streaming service. The fourth season finally came out this summer, and so I’ve resumed my one-man campaign to get everyone to watch.
The fourth season is probably the darkest and harshest season yet, but still thrilling. The most frustrating aspect of the new season is purely technical – Netflix has bafflingly filed it on their platform as a separate show from Borgen. Instead of listing it as the fourth season of that show, you have to find it under a new title, Borgen: Power & Glory. Oh, well. Those respective links will take you directly to the show(s) on Netflix.
In other news:
My aforementioned friend and West Wing Weekly co-host Josh Malina is in a new play that debuts next week: What We Talk About When We Talk about Anne Frank, based on a short story by award-winning author (and now playwright) Nathan Englander. I’m seeing it this Saturday, a day before its world premiere at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego. I already know I’m going to love it, and I’ve learned my lesson from Borgen, so I’m starting my campaign to get people to see it now. Get tickets here.
Speaking of getting tickets, you can get tickets for my upcoming shows in Chicago, Iowa City, and St. Paul. I’ll be on tour with my dear pal and songwriting collaborator Jenny Owen Youngs, who you may also know as the co-host of the wonderful podcast Buffering the Vampire Slayer. (Coincidentally, The New York Times published an article about TV recap podcasts yesterday, featuring both Buffering the Vampire Slayer and The West Wing Weekly.) Buffering the Vampire Slayer is ending its run of recapping Buffy the Vampire Slayer this weekend, with a live taping of their finale! I had the great fortune to be a guest on the show a couple times, and I contributed to a few of the songs that Jenny writes to go along with each episode. That opportunity ended up significantly impacting my life…but that’s a story for another time. If you come to one of our shows in October, you’ll hear more about that.
Wednesday, October 26 - Chicago, IL - Sleeping Village - tickets
Thursday, October 27 - Iowa City, IA - Englert Theatre - tickets
Friday, October 28 - St. Paul, MN - Amsterdam Bar and Hall - tickets
Thanks!
– Hrishikesh
Danish Parliament has a dope logo