Borgen snuck into the UK at the start of the last decade among the great wave of Scandi – or Nordic – noir, instigated by the likes of The Killing and Wallander. Only Borgen was nothing like these shows – no grisly murders, no unexpected deaths, minimal knitwear, and zero high-stakes shoot-outs. Instead, it was a deftly written, stunningly shot political drama, following Birgitte Nyborg – played beautifully by Sidse Babett Knudsen – who unexpectedly becomes Denmark’s first female Statsminister (prime minister).
Focusing not only on the political machinations of Borgen (literally “the Castle”, the Danish nickname for Christiansborg Palace, where the government – run on a system of proportional representation – resides), but also the personal lives of the politicians and journalists in its orbit, it quickly became a firm favourite in the “golden age” of TV. This was a remarkable achievement, not only because it was Denmark’s first attempt at a political drama, but also because it focused on the minutiae of Dansk politik, such as pig farming and oil revenues, and somehow took international viewers along for the ride – with some excellent Danish interior design thrown in for good measure.
After supposedly signing off for good in 2013, the drama is making a much-anticipated return on Netflix on 2 June, with a new drive and a darker feel which, funnily enough, leans more in the stylistic direction of its Nordic noir brethren.
Why now? I ask Knudsen and the show’s creator, Adam Price – who, as well as writing and showrunning, is a well-known TV chef in Denmark. The time was right, Price says. “We did say to each other that if the right story came along, we would try to get the band back together again. Sidse actually said, ‘See you in 10 years’! Then the right story did appear, though at the time I didn’t know it would end up being Borgen.”
That “right story” entails a significant new oil discovery in Greenland – a Danish dependency – which throws most of the old favourites back together. Nyborg is back, in a newly formed government, as minister for foreign affairs. Has she really been in the same job all this time? I suggest to Knudsen that she must have thought about what her character has been doing: “Oh I’m not method at all – I actually just put her in the cupboard, and she’s been doing well. But I took her out from the closet, and she fitted like a glove.”
I ask the same thing of Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, who plays fearless journalist turned political advisor Katrine Fønsmark. “I didn’t think about it until I got the call,” Sørensen says, “and then when I started reading the first script, it felt like finding an old friend on Facebook, and I was thinking ‘Oh! Wow! She’s actually been alive all this time!”
Of all the characters, Fønsmark was the one who seemed to come full circle by the end of season three – letting her guard down, accepting love – but this new series feels as much about the torrid emotional journeys of both Nyborg and Fønsmark as it does the Greenlandic issue. “Back in the day, Katrine used to be very good at her job, but not her private life. Then meeting Søren [Ravn, Nyborg’s ex-policy advisor, played by Scandi-noir stalwart Lars Mikkelsen] sort of put her at ease, and … it kind of worked. Then she maybe dialled back on the work front for a while, had another child, and now she’s coming back full-force,” Sørensen says.
Borgen is coming back full-force too, but it’s a very different beast. Everyone is careful not to call it a fourth season. Instead, it is a self-contained project under the title Power & Glory, with the single Greenland plot running through all eight episodes. It is far more sombre – from the ominous title sequence onwards – surrounding Nyborg with shade, emptiness and darkness. It’s not pitch black in tone, but for Borgen, it is as if a lot of the designer lighting has been dimmed.
Nyborg strikes a more solitary figure, more Machiavellian, losing some of her old self to her job. “If I don’t work 19-hour days as foreign minister, then who the hell am I?” she says at one point. Knudsen, in her unnervingly English RP accent, agrees. “Times have changed, and this is really a very interesting melange of the old Borgen and something very new. I was most interested that this time it is her relationship with herself, with her ideals and her political values, with her place in the world. So it is, I guess you could say, lonely, but there’s more nuance.”
Reflecting the times must have also been a huge consideration. In the nine years the show has been away, we’ve had Brexit, Trump, the Black Lives Matter movement, #MeToo, a global pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The original Borgen existed in lighter times, depicting an almost West Wing optimism. “I remember when we were talking with journalists from abroad 10 years ago; they were like: ‘Is Denmark like that?’” says Knudsen, “and the Borgen universe has always been a bit more friendly … it’s an idealistic show, but we really wanted you to believe it was true, because it would be nice if such a country existed in the world. But even in Denmark we couldn’t get away with doing that now, because it is more cynical.”
Times have changed for Fønsmark, too. Once she was a glass ceiling-shattering force of nature; now the world seems to have moved on while she has stood still, leaving her with a feeling with which many millennials may identify – still feeling young, but now they’re the “adults” in the room. “Even though she’s only around 40, she’s also old school, so the ‘woke’ time we’re in now, she understands and embraces it, but she slips often because she says stuff she’s not supposed to. [But] where she used to have ambitions for her own sake, now I think she is ambitious for journalism as a whole, and wanting to save [it] in a way.”
Similarly, Nyborg has never been a “power for power’s sake” politician, but during Power & Glory we see her drift somewhat. “How does she justify her actions with herself?” says Knudsen. “It’s not so black and white. I was really thrilled to do that development. Being a leader has become such an essential part of her identity, so it’s not just [power for power’s sake], it’s because that’s who she is.”
Price adds: “Like Sidse says, if you build your identity on your position, then it becomes too costly to lose that, because then you lose yourself.”
There is also a hugely prescient Russia reference in the opening episode which may well make your jaw drop. Even though the show had been wrapped for a while before the most recent offensive in Ukraine, a speech at the end of episode one hits hard. It is not the first time Price has been accused of being clairvoyant – Borgen has always appeared to be a few steps ahead of reality. “It’s so crazy,” says Sørensen. “I think Adam is so well informed, so well researched, and makes speculations which often seem to come true.” Knudsen thinks it’s something else. “Adam has a crystal ball – he always has – and he won’t talk about it. It happened back in the day as well.” After all, Denmark’s first female prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, was elected a year after the first season aired.
• Borgen: Power & Glory launches on Netflix on 2 June.
