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BBC4…Borgen. Loses its rythm as it heads out to Africa.

27 Jan

Borgen has a formula that over the two seasons we have watched it has worked very well. The formula encompasses three main themes Danish Media, Danish Parliamentary Politics and the lives of those who inhabit these spheres of Danish life.

These are the programmes strengths and as the saying goes if it ain’t broken don’t fix it. It seems the writers ignored that and decide to “fix” Borgen in the last two episodes.

When we last left Birgitte Nyborg she was under pressure following the breakdown of the coalition.  Often in politics when things are looking tricky at home, politicians seek refuge in foreign adventures to ease the pressure it is no different in Denmark it seems. We are introduced to the Republic of Kharun a fictitious Africa republic.  The country apparently is in the middle of a conflict between a largely Arab Muslim north and an African christian south.

Sounds familiar you might say, well you would right for all intents and purposes this was Sudan.  From the President of the North being wanted for war crimes, the only pipeline for the export of oil going through the North and the North cheating the South of millions in Oil revenues.

So the scene was set for Borgen’s political drama to go international, but it was at this point it all fell apart. What we know to be a complex and drawn out conflict was reduced to a conflict of ego’s between two unreasonable African’s leaders that needed the firm hand of Danish diplomacy to sort out.

The characterisation of  the leaders of both North and South Kharun were depicted in a cartoon-ish manner , both roles incidentally were played by British actors.

The northern leader was  a died in the wool Islamist, who refuses to shake hands with women or speak in English in public despite being Cambridge educated. The reason was it doesn’t play well to the public at home, but all his appearances were in the privacy of conference rooms.  The other  was the uber-saintly rebel who only wants the best for his people.

Not content with the two-dimensional representation of these two characters,  the dual episode turned its sights on the conflict itself. For Birgitte’s political purposes she needed to announce the signing of a big deal between the Kharanese quickly.

In real life the Sudan conflict took years before an agreement could be reached between North and South Sudan, but in Borgen time this was reduced to days.

The hub of the negotiations had a white board  and on it was listed a whole range of areas of contention and what in practice would take a huge team of negotiators many months if not years were quickly ticked off by lead negotiators Amir Dwian, brought in because they need a trustworthy muslim,  and Bent Serjo.

The two episodes felt very much like Borgen had left it comfort zone and were very unsatisfactory, a changed from the measured and well nuanced political drama we know this to be.

I expect a return next week to the more familiar environs around Christiansborg.

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BBC4…Borgen – Has Birgitte Nyborg finally crossed to the dark side?

20 Jan

Ok I am not going to beat around the bush here but last night Borgen was some of the best TV I have watched in a long time, the final scene with Kasper Juul (Pilou Asbæk) was a tour de force, an award-winning portrayal of a man with a deeply scarred soul.

In season One a secret was shared with the viewers about Kasper Juul, a deep dark secret of his sexual abuse by his father. A vile abuse in a lonely home somewhere deep in Denmark. We came to learn that what seemed to be the arrogant swagger of a workaholic Lothario who prowled the corridors of power at the Borgen was a cover to hide a deeply ingrained emotional trauma.

This week more was revealed about the nature of that trauma, we learnt that it wasn’t just his father who had raped him, but he was shared like some weekly prize amongst his father’s peadophiliac poker buddies. We saw the emotional blackmail used by his father to hide his vile crimes from Kasper’s mum. We were however still the only ones who have shared these horrific memories with Kasper. Katrine, Lotte and Birgitte, all the women in his life had no idea till this episode.

Katrine was the closest to the truth but still so far till tonight. In an emotional scene Kasper retrieved the only possession he seemed to have, a collection of bits and pieces from his parents house including a VHS video and newspaper clippings. After a heated argument with Lotte his current girlfriend, as once again Kasper failure to commit unravels a relationship, he storms out of her flat.

It seems at this point he comes to some sort of epiphany, that he needs to share the burden he has carried all his life with some one else. He hands the collection of his memories to Katrine at her flat and walks away. Reading through the clips and watching the video she suddenly begins to understand all the layers Kasper had been hiding behind, the lies about his family in the South of France, the fear of commitment. She sees the pain, loneliness and despair Kasper had lived with.

The moment Kasper and Katrine meet again no words need to be spoken. We now all knew.

While Kasper was unburdening his soul Birgitte burdens were getting heavier and the idealism of season one was being replaced a much darker cynicism. A cynicism which she is quick to embrace but whose outcomes she struggles to control. We see how quickly she throws her long term ally Amir Dwian, the Green Party Leader, to the baying Press hounds when she leaks his love of a petrol guzzling vintage car to press, sparking a frenzy to expose the hypocrisy of his position.

She does this to force his hand into agreeing to some government legislation, but in doing so precipitated the end of Amir’s political career, the Green Party leaving the coalition and transforming her government into a minority one.

One the home front we see that being single mother and Prime Minister of a medium sized western European nation is not a recommended career progression. Her children, especially her daughter Laura are feeling the strain but Birgitte can’t see it.

She believes she is on a mission borne out of idealism but is this still the case or is it as the opening quote suggests “Much that passes as idealism is a disguised love of power. “

One a side not the deliciously odious Svend Åge Saltum is given a lot of airtime and he rises admirably to his role as the pantomime villain of the piece (at least for now).

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BBC4…Borgen gets seriously Machiavellian.

13 Jan

“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared” – Machiavelli

This was the opening quote in the credits of the second episode of yesterday’s Borgen double-header but it could apply to either of the two back to back episodes, and really when you think about it to the whole season as Borgen is getting very Machiavellian.

In Season One Birgitte Nyborg was breath of fresh air, a reformer, a political outsider with principled stands seeking to put the good ship SS Denmark back on course. Gradually though the dark princes of political arts began once again to weave their webs of deceit and lies and have begun to ensnare Nyborg. The two episodes contained two coup d’etat’s, one long, drawn out and carefully plotted. The other sharp and instant, with fatal consequences.

On the political front both episodes centred around the Labour Party, Nyborg’s partners in the coalition.

In the first episode we witness the slow lingering political regicide of Bjørn Marrot the Labour Party Leader and Foreign Minister. This tale has echoes of the change the UK’s Labour Party has gone through. Marrot was old school, an apprentice welder who had worked his way to the upper echelon’s of the Labour Party, his failing though was for what he had in political conviction he lacked in political finesse, he could almost have been former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. He simply was not ‘New’ Labour.

The party was being taken over by sharp suited career politicians, symbolised by the justice Minister, Troels Höxenhaven and they were keen for a party in their mold.

The plot started of with a series of leaks to the press about gaffes by Marrot, an interview with the BBC in English where he mixed his metaphors and created a new one – “Don’t shoot the parrot’, not knowing what a black tie dinner meant, and leaks about porn and mini bar drinks charged to the foreign ministry.

The moment of execution was left to the day of a seaside  cabinet summit that Nyborg had called to agree major changes to Denmark’s welfare state. One change in particular, early retirement seemed to be causing dissent in the Labour Party.

Nyborg needed unanimity from the cabinet in order to push through a controversial legislation, but every time Marrot thought he had got a Labour position he was being briefed against by party insiders.

At the summit it came to a head when Höxenhaven and his colleague Pernille Madsen openly disagreed with him. Marrot turned to his long-term ally Defence Minister Hans Christian Thorsen for support, and in a telling moment that support did not come.

Marrot exploded in rage at his supposed colleagues, but the deed was done and  a simple “e tu Thorsen” probably would have served.

The summit was cancelled and out of the embers of Marrot’s Leadership emerged the new Labour  leader a suave, smiling Höxenhaven.

The Princes of political dark arts however were not done. In season one current Ekspres newspaper editor Michael Laugesen was the head of the Labour party and his fall from grace was aided by Höxenhaven, a treachery he had not forgiven or forgotten. Laugesen was also an ally of Marrot all sufficient reason for him to have more than a passing interest in the turmoil in the Labour party.

Laugesen however is not a man who waits for things to happen, he makes things happen. There had long been whispers that Höxenhaven had a penchant for young men despite his marriage of 16 years and this was to prove to be the weapon of choice for Laugesen. He embedded a rent boy in the media team he had sent to cover the cabinet summit with a view to ensnaring Höxenhaven. It worked.

His original plan was to publish an expose written by Katrine Fønsmark in the newspaper, but both her and her editor Hanne Holm had reservations about how relevant an expose on a cabinet minister’s sexuality was. Laugesen argued that the issue was about trust but they remain unconvinced. As the saying goes if you got to do a job properly, you have got to do it yourself.

Cue a late night meeting between Laugesen and Höxenhaven in which copies of the pictures were handed over. I never liked the Höxenhaven character he seemed spineless and untrustworthy but at that moment when he realised everything, his personal and professional life was about to crash down around him, you would have to sympathise.

Shattered, Höxenhaven meets up with Nyborg to tender his resignation and the next day is found dead. He committed suicide using tables Nyborg kept in her office.

In a little moment that again shows the erosion of her wholesomeness, Nyborg agrees to have the source of the tablets covered up. A harmless coverup one might say, but it starts soemwhere.

Outside the political arena Birgitte gets to meet the new woman in ex-husband Philip’s life, Cecile Toft, Amazonian blonde, blue eyes, expert Mexican food cook and a pediatrician what’s not to like if you’re Philip and wants not to dislike if you are Birgitte.

The reality that her marriage is truly over pushes Birgitte into a moment of extreme emotional fragility and straight into the arms and bed of her chauffeur a moment of weakness that would come back to hunt her. I am not sure if it was intentional but the scene where the chauffeur is fixing her plumbing when she entices him is the ultimate parody of a 70′s porn film.

Katrine and Kasper Juul’s never quite ended relationship flickers back into life as they engage in a romantic tryst first at the cabinet summit and later back at Katrine’s flat but there is too much baggage from before and Kasper’s realises (or at least I think he does) that it is not going to work with Katrine. He is not ready to open up to her in the way she wants.

In a desperate move he announces he is cutting off all professional contact with her, but not before Katrine hands him one last bombshell, evidence that Laugesen set Höxenhaven up.

Nyborg confronts Laugesen with the information and demands change in the attitude of his paper to her government, relaxed and smarmy as ever Laugesen brings up ger romantic dalliance with her chauffeur. 1-0 to Laugesen methinks.

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BBC4…Borgen hits Season 2 and is still brilliant.

8 Jan

I have finally caught up with BBC 4′s Borgen double header opening to season 2. Second seasons are always tricky, you have had a great first season and now have a reputation to live upto, something to be compared against.

Borgen did not disappoint, it was as good as it was last season. The political drama and backstabbing flowed as thickly, and the human drama that under pinned it was superbly acted as usual.

The first episode centered around Denmark’s involvement in Afghanistan. In the opening scene  we met a young Danish soldier about to go out on reconnaissance in Helmand Province in Afghanistan.  As Politicians are wont to do Birgitte Nyborg had popped in on a ‘meet the troops’ visit. The young squadie cheekily asked for a photograph with  the Prime Minister remarking how rare it was to have “babes” around camp.

That meeting set the scene for the episode as shortly after the photograph the Taliban launched an offensive killing eight Danish soldiers including the young soldier Nyborg had met and throwing her long-held policy aim to withdraw Denmark from the war into disarray.

Nyborg was now faced with three stark choices, withdraw and hand a political victory to the Taliban as well as upset Denmark’s allies, keep the military deployment with no change and face accusations that the soldiers are being abandoned to their fate, or strengthen the deployment and face accusations that she was escalating the war and possibly fracturing the ruling coalition.

Borgen on the surface is about Birgitte Nyborg, but it is really about a journey of discovery of two women Birgitte Nyborg and Katrine Fonsmark whose fate often intertwines with Nyborg’s and the debacle in Afghanistan once again brought their fates together.

Katrine was embedded with the Danish army at the time of the attack and was witness to its aftermath. On return to Denmark her boss and arch-enemy of the Prime Minister, Michael Laugesson, wanted to use the death of the soldiers to do a hatchet job on the Prime Minister.

Katrine is reluctant to do this and instead pushes for a human interest angle by focusing on the family of a dead soldier, which by coincidence turns out to the same soldier the Prime Minister met in Afghanistan.

Borgen is so well written that sometimes you forget that you are watching a foreign import, but other times you think really? When Katrine went to interview the dead soldier’s father her cold, pushy matter of fact manner was unusual particularly given that she is supposedly one of the more empathetic characters. I suspect even the sleaziest hack from a fleet street tabloid would have been more circumspect in those circumstances.

Ultimately it is the anguish of the bereaved father that resolves the Prime Minister’s dilemma and provides Katrine with the copy she needs for her paper.  A letter from his son sent in the event of his death reveals why he served in Afghanistan, and although his Father could not rationalise the reasons, that along with political realities sways the Prime Minister to increase Denmark’s commitment to the war, and the letter also provides Katrine with the perfect copy she was after.

The reason it did was all down to 89,000 children.

In the second episode of the double-header,  the European Union was the source of Nyborg’s problems. Denmark needed to nominate a new Commissioner, straight forward proposition you might think but not in the murky world of politics. Having to make that choice also laid bare how much Nyborg’s relationship with the man who was effectively her mentor, Bent Serjo, had deteriorated.

Bent had become increasingly critical of Nyborg’s policies, and her removing him from the cabinet last season had not helped matters. After another heated argument we see her berating him for not booking appointments with just like everyone else coming to see her. As her exasperation with Bent grew, a suggestion from one of the rising stars of her party, Jacob Fruse seemed to offer the perfect solution.

Fruse a man who reminds me of Boycie from Only Fools and Horses and therefore instantly untrustworthy suggested that Bent be offered the EU commissioner’s job. Shipping him off to Brussels was just the solution Nyborg needed, but there were problems. Bent did not want to go. He eventually came round but unexpectedly at a farewell party to mark the appointment he suffered a heart attack.

It turns out that Fruse had known Bent had a previous attack but neglected to tell the Prime Minister hoping that with Bent out of the way he could take a step closer to becoming Nyborg’s eventual successor. His Machiavellian plot was uncovered and he was dispatched (or should that be exiled) to Brussels for his sins.

Off the main story arc we saw the slow lingering death of Nyborg’s marriage, a reality she was struggling to come to terms with.

The suave but troubled Kasper Juul has a new girlfriend but in an inopportune moment refers to her as Katrine and to compound matters opts to celebrate Katrine’s birthday with her forcing his girl friend to cancel plans she’d made earlier. She seemed baffingly understanding about the whole thing.

Meanwhile Katrine’s relationship with her colleague Hanne Holm strengthened as Hannah revealed the hurt of her pretty non-existent relationship with her own daughter.

Roll on episode 3!

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Homeland. Why did I doubt season 2 was going to be good?

14 Oct

Homeland is back. 2 weeks in and it has raised its level of excitement to unfricking-believable with two “Big Balls” moments.

Carrie Mathison swings between daring and delusional and sometimes it is difficult to tell when she’s which.

In today’s episode she’s in Beirut and after escaping fearsome milita henchmen at the end of last weeks episode. She meets with a former informant, a Hezobollah commander’s wife. The informant reveals that the terrorist king pin Abu Nazir is meeting her husband in Beirut.

With this information passed onto the CIA, Estes sets up a plot to capture or assassinate Abu Nazir.  It is such a big opportunity that a live screening of satellite footage is held for the Joint Chiefs  Of Staff in the Pentagon. Vice President William Walden a keen fan of US military covert action is not one to miss out on an opportunity for USA high-fiving and brings along his new best buddy Congressman Brody.

As the operation develops, Brody who was in the dark about the detail soon realises his mentor Abu Nazir is the target. Panic ensues. How does he get a message out to Abu Nazir? We get the first “big balls’ moment as Brody slips out his phone and sends a surreptitious text message to Abu Nazir from the inner sanctum of the Pentagon. The message reaches just as the CIA snipers have begun to engage their targets and Abu Nazir escapes by the skin of his teeth.

Action switches to Carrie who with Sol are racing across Beirut to pick up the informant and whisk her out of Lebanon. They find her and need to get out fast as they are in a Hezobollah neighbourhood and people around are getting curious.

Carrie however decides that if they are in the neighbourhood why doesn’t she just pop in, ransack the dead commanders study to see if she can unearth any document notwithstanding the scary looking goons in the vicinity.That’s what anyone of us would do, right?.  ”Big Balls” moment 2, she does just that despite Sol screaming his head off that they need to get out of the area.

Her headstrong decision almost cost her life in a chase scene across the flat roofs of Beirut. She comes away with a lot of documents which when examined later seem largely useless until Sol finds some kind of memory card in the lining of the bag Carrie used to gather the documents.

It contains Sgt Brodie suicide message from the end of last season. WOW! I can’t wait for next Sunday.

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Channel 5 – Terrestial TVs enfant terrible has come of age…

13 Oct

The Easter weekend of 1997 saw the launch of the UK’s fifth terrestial Channel, tapping in to the zeitgeist of the time it was launched by the Spice Girls.

After the fanfare and publicity of the launch the real work started and this meant fighting for audience share with the four existing terrestrial channels (BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4) as well as an ever increasing number of satellite and cable channels.

The battle was fierce, their well-funded terrestrial competitors with a customer base built up over decades were not going to be dislodged easily and the initial audience figures showed this with Channel 5 languishing with only 2.3% of the viewing audience.

In the chase for audience share the channel gradually morphed into what the tabloids christened Channel Filth or as a programming executive of Channel 5 was quoted when describing their programming output as  three F’s,  football, films and what can be best described as the present continuous tense of the f-word.

The style of programming reached its zenith in 2000 with the infamous reality TV show ‘Naked Jungle’ which introduced us not only to totally naked contestants but distressingly a totally naked host, Keith Chegwin.  The show almost ended Chegwin’s career and unleashed a wave of moral outrage against Channel 5.

Channel 5 has moved on from those dire days the football is still there occasionally, there are still films, but the third F is now  F for Foreign TV shows and good quality shows as well.  The CSI franchise, Law & Order, House MD, The Shield, Breaking Bad, The Mentalist  have introduced great US TV shows to the UK and have seen a solid and sustained rise in Channel 5’s audience share.

Are you a fan of Channel 5? What’s your best programme?

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