The return of the implausibly moreish Borgen

A decade ago the unthinkable happened: a subtitled TV drama about people agreeing with one another went global. On paper it bore the hallmark of a barrel-scraping pitch from Alan Partridge. Somewhere between youth hostelling with Chris Eubank and monkey tennis, he might easily have proposed a new ne plus ultra in implausible entertainment concepts: Danish coalition politics.

Yet Borgen caught a thermal and soared. The show took its name (which, correctly pronounced, sounds like a Cockney saying ‘Bolton’) from the so-called fortress in the heart of Copenhagen where state business is conducted. It featured Birgitte Nyborg, a moderate heroine who snuck into Denmark’s highest office through a small centrist crack between left and right. Embodied by Sidse Babett Knudsen, whose background was all in comedy, there was steel in her eye and sandpaper in her voice – but that gigawatt smile of hers could melt a thousand icecaps.

Perhaps unconsciously groomed by Borgen, before the second series aired Danes elected their first ever non-fictional female statsminister. Helle Thorning-Schmidt, professing herself a fan, compounded international interest in the show. Though France was the earliest adopter, the UK was soon rapt as BBC Four pumped out episodes in pairs of a Saturday night. It helped that, for the first time in for ever, we too were experiencing the befuddling Euro-hybrid of coalition government. The cross-party cabinet was said to include students of Borgen.

We’d all been softened up for it by The Killing, the viral whodunnit from Danish state broadcaster DR which had political subplots hardwired in. But in lieu of Nordic noir, this was Nordic nice. Borgen’s stars (the ones who weren’t already known from The Killing) became familiar faces. Babett Knudsen, an impeccable English speaker, made two movies with Tom Hanks. Birgitte Hjort Sorensen (who played news anchor Katrine Fonsmark) and Pilou Asbæk (spin doctor Kasper Juul) both popped up in Game of Thrones.

DR almost never commissions a third series of anything, but Borgen was a cash cow projecting soft power and so Nyborg, out of office and newly divorced, formed a new party and electioneered her way back to her spiritual home, now as foreign minister.