Borgen (TV series)

Borgen is a Danish political drama television series. Adam Price is the co-writer and developer of the series, together with Jeppe Gjervig Gram and Tobias Lindholm. Borgen season 1-3 is produced by DR, season 4 is produced by SAM Productions on behalf of DR, the Danish public broadcaster, which previously produced The Killing. In Denmark, "Borgen" is the informal name of Christiansborg Palace where all three branches of Danish government reside: the Parliament, the Prime Minister's Office, and the Supreme Court, and is often used as a stand in term for the Danish Parliament.
The programme tells how, against all the odds, Birgitte Nyborg Christensen —a minor centrist politician—becomes the first female prime minister of Denmark. Other main characters are Birgitte Hjort Sørensen as Katrine Fønsmark, a TV1 news anchor; Pilou Asbæk as Kasper Juul, a spin doctor; Søren Malling as Torben Friis, news editor for TV1; Mikael Birkkjær as Birgitte's husband, Phillip; and Benedikte Hansen as Hanne Holm, a journalist.
The first season of Borgen premiered in Denmark on 26 September 2010. Two more seasons, each also ten episodes long, followed in September 2011 and January 2013. Nine years later, in February 2022, the eight-episode-long fourth season was released in collaboration with Netflix.

Birgitte Nyborg

, the creator of the series, has stated, "I definitely want you to believe there is a shred of idealism in Birgitte Nyborg that is real. She's also become a very professional political being, but there is definitely that idealism, and that's important."
Sidse Babett Knudsen plays Nyborg. In describing her relationship with the character, she said, "They liked to see a woman feeling guilty and I didn't like that... I think should be responsible for her feelings. And when she has to make unsympathetic decisions, she should stand by them. I don't want her to feel sorry for herself or suddenly become a soppy mess in her private life, because you wouldn't believe her as a prime minister if she did that."
In the first episode, Birgitte is the leader of a minority political party, the "Moderates". However, as a result of a sequence of events following a closely fought general election, she finds herself a compromise candidate for the role of prime minister and wins, juggling a variety of interests among her collaborators. She learns on the job and serves in this position until the end of the second series. In the first series, she is known as Birgitte Nyborg Christensen. She and her husband Philip Christensen separate, in part because of tensions arising from her job responsibilities and how it affects her family, including two children. The couple divorce at the end of the first episode of series two, and she uses the name Birgitte Nyborg.
In the elapsed time between the second and third series, Nyborg loses her position. She leaves the government and becomes a businesswoman and public speaker. She returns in the third series to form a new political party, the "New Democrats". The series ends with Nyborg taking up the position of the Danish foreign minister.
In the fourth season, titled Riget, Magten, og Æren, Nyborg remains as foreign minister. She has to navigate the implication of oil being found in Greenland, which threatens to derail her party's green agenda, sparks an international crisis with the US, China, and Russia; and pushes the government to the brink of collapse.
The series ended with Nyborg having resigned as leader of the New Democrats and foreign minister. It also hints that Nyborg will become the next Danish Commissioner of the European Commission.

Cast

Political parties and media

While the political parties in the series are fictional, they may be recognisable as their real-life equivalents.

The Moderates, Birgitte Nyborg's centre-left party in the first two series, is based on the Danish Social Liberal Party
The centre-left Labour Party is based on the Social Democrats
The left-wing environmentalist Green Party is similar to the Socialist People's Party
The far-left Solidarity Collective is similar to the Red-Green Alliance
The New Democrats, Birgitte Nyborg's new centrist party in the third season is based on the New Alliance
The centre-right Liberal Party is based on Venstre
New Right is similar to the conservative Conservative People's Party
The national-conservative Freedom Party is stated by party leader Svend Åge Saltum to be a successor party to Mogens Glistrup's Progress Party, just like its real-life successor Danish People's Party

The fictional broadcasters and newspapers also have their real-life equivalents: the public broadcaster TV1 is based on DR1, the tabloid newspaper Ekspres is inspired by Ekstra Bladet, and the commercial 2'eren is similar to TV 2.

Election results

Season 1 starts with a general election that leads to a multi-party government that includes the Moderates, Labour and the Greens, supported by the Solidarity Collective. This continues into Season 2, with the Greens leaving government towards the end of that season.
Season 3 follows an election where the Liberals are back in power with the New Right, supported by the Freedom Party and the Moderates. The finale includes a snap election that ends with the Liberals forming a centre ground coalition with the New Right and the New Democrats, supported by the Moderates, with no involvement from the Freedom Party.
Season 4 begins with the Labour Party and the New Democrats in coalition, supported by the Greens, Solidarity and Greenlandic representatives. The government only has a majority of one based on this support. It is stated that the opposition includes the Liberals with 42 seats, the Freedom Party with 27 seats and the New Right with 18 seats.

Episodes

Reception

The series has been well received by critics and audiences alike. It became a hit in Denmark as well as Australia, the UK and the US, becoming one of several Danish series to do so in recent years. Maggie Brown of The Guardian cited the strong female characters, originality and an ability to "uncannily forecast actual developments in Danish politics" as reasons for its success. Jane Merrick of The Independent published a list of similarities from Series 2 to actual events in present-day UK politics following the conclusion of the series in the UK.
US critics have been similarly positive, with Newsweek dubbing Borgen "the best TV show you have never seen" and bestselling novelist and Entertainment Weekly columnist Stephen King put the series on the top of his top 10 list of the best TV shows of 2012. The New York Times also offered praise, describing Borgen as a "bleaker, Nordic version of The West Wing" and saying it "finds a remarkable amount of drama and suspense in center-left alliances, pension plans, and televised debates."
With several middle of the road 3/6 star ratings, the Danish media's reaction to the third series was noticeably less positive than for the first two series. Politiken commented that the third series "ended like a soap opera" and "never succeeded in breaking free from predictability"; with Berlingske's review declaring that while the third series "tied up the loose ends in pretty bows and was, like the rest of the series, well performed, it was also insidiously dull". Tabloid paper BT however claimed that the series "finished on a peak" and with this third season had "become the best Danish series in years". The critique came after several months where storylines from the third series in an unprecedented manner for a Danish drama series had sparked media headlines and created hefty debates in real life Danish politics on, among other issues, prostitution and pig farming, epitomised by Danish MP Mai Henriksen from Conservative People's Party, who was widely accused by colleagues and journalists of advocating a bill of rights for prostitutes, solely because she was inspired by Borgen.
For the fourth season, the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 95% based on 19 reviews, with an average rating of 9.5/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Borgen returns after an extended hiatus with its emotional heft and political intelligence wholly intact, reasserting itself as the best kind of brainy escapism."

Awards

Award Show	Year	Category	Nominee	Result
International Emmy Award	2012	Best Performance by an Actress	Sidse Babett Knudsen	Nomitated
Monte Carlo TV Festival	2011	Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series	Sidse Babett Knudsen	Won
Monte Carlo TV Festival	2013	Best International Drama TV Series	Borgen III	Nomitated
Monte Carlo TV Festival	2013	Best European Drama TV Series	Borgen III	Won
Monte Carlo TV Festival	2013	Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series	Birgitte Hjort Sørensen	Nomitated
British Academy Television Awards	2012	International Prize	Borgen	Won
British Academy Television Awards	2014	International Prize	Borgen
Prix Italia	2010	Best TV Drama – Series and Serials	Borgen	Won
Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels	2011	Best TV Series and Serials	Borgen	Won
Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels	2011	TV series and Serials: Best Music	Halfdan E	Won
Peabody Award	2013	Area of Excellence	Borgen	Won
Critics' Choice Awards	2023	Best Foreign Language Series	Borgen	Nomitated

Borgen won the award for Best International TV series at the 2012 British Academy Television Awards.
Awards for the series include the 2010 Prix Italia for best drama series, a Golden Nymph to Sidse Babett Knudsen for Outstanding Actress in a drama series at the 2011 Monte-Carlo Television Festival, and the Fipa Grand Prize for Best TV Series as well as for Best Original Soundtrack at the 2011 Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels.