Series 4 Power and Glory - This revived series of Borgen, set quite a few years after the much better original three series (some of the male actors look dreadfully aged), manages to fall between several stools. It cannot decide whether as in the original it is a political drama showing the incestuous, toxic and democracy-denying relationship between politicians and media, or a geopolitical thriller with indigenous people, climate change and veganism thrown in for good measure.
The plot, centering around an oil find in Greenland and resultant squabbles over revenue, enables a lot of pretty landscapes to be shown but has plenty of holes otherwise. A secret services project resulting in a death is never properly developed, and the tensions between the Greenland government and Denmark are played out mainly in the kitchen of a politician and the hotel bedroom of a civil servant. The superpowers are represented by a few stock shots of fighter planes and four Russian soldiers running away after a Danish soldier fires a pistol into the air. The Chinese are always stereotypically represented as cunning, manipulative and dressed in dark suits.
But perhaps the most egregious part is the tacked-on media sub-plot, in which media people stand around arguing and occasionally firing each other while trying to say something meaningful about current events. In this series, the most beautiful woman in Denmark gets to have a breakdown because she can't hack it at the top. But it's okay because she now has an understanding elderly husband who owns a farm where she can get close to nature.
Birgitte Nyborg is as manipulative and dishonest as ever, despite her apparent difference from normal politicians, and the series relies on these flaws being explained away as the contradictions of power. To back these up there is a liberal scattering of quotations. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
The plot, centering around an oil find in Greenland and resultant squabbles over revenue, enables a lot of pretty landscapes to be shown but has plenty of holes otherwise. A secret services project resulting in a death is never properly developed, and the tensions between the Greenland government and Denmark are played out mainly in the kitchen of a politician and the hotel bedroom of a civil servant. The superpowers are represented by a few stock shots of fighter planes and four Russian soldiers running away after a Danish soldier fires a pistol into the air. The Chinese are always stereotypically represented as cunning, manipulative and dressed in dark suits.
But perhaps the most egregious part is the tacked-on media sub-plot, in which media people stand around arguing and occasionally firing each other while trying to say something meaningful about current events. In this series, the most beautiful woman in Denmark gets to have a breakdown because she can't hack it at the top. But it's okay because she now has an understanding elderly husband who owns a farm where she can get close to nature.
Birgitte Nyborg is as manipulative and dishonest as ever, despite her apparent difference from normal politicians, and the series relies on these flaws being explained away as the contradictions of power. To back these up there is a liberal scattering of quotations. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth.