1864: Danish television (remember the Borgen series?) hits it out of the park once again

Lovers of Danish television need hear but one word -- Borgen -- to have that love erupt all over again. (You could also add the words The Bridge or The Killing for further effect.) I may be speaking too soon here, since I've only seen two of the eight episodes in this nearly eight-hour series, but those two hours are good enough to have me add the Danish TV series 1864 to my list of Best Television Ever.

"I am the times that have disappeared," explains our narrator, a lovely young woman named Inga (shown three photos below), near the series' beginning. Almost immediately those times appear in all their beauty, glory and finally horror.

1864 is a year that will resonate with any remaining Americans who know or care about history, due to our own Civil War, which was in full flower that year. In the Denmark of 1864 occurred what is said to be the bloodiest battle in Danish history. How and why this came about, along with what happened to the series' three main characters -- Inga and the two brothers she loves, Peter and Laust -- because of this, comprise a good portion of the series, created by Ole Bornedal (shown at right and maybe best remembered over here for the original Nightwatch movie). Interestingly, 1864 moves back and forth between that titular year and present day, as we meet a young student and her drug-addled boyfriend (below) in a history class during which those earlier times are being studied.

How these two centuries come together, thematically and dramatically, provide much of the series' wonder and charm, but the real kicker -- the consistent pièce de résistance -- is how each and every scene I've viewed so far has been been expertly chosen for meaning and resonance, and then written, directed and acted to near-perfection.

This would be breath-taking, except for the fact that we're so glued to things like plot and incident, not to mention the enormous beauty of the sets and cinematography, that we hardly have time to oooh and ahhhh to the degree that we ought (and normally would).

Initially, at least, the series seems utterly and devastatingly anti-nationalistic, and this could hardly come at a better or more necessary time to perhaps stall the western world's devolution. Bornedal is giving us a wonderful history lesson here, from which we have much to learn.

Whether we're seeing/hearing the patriotic stupidity being taught in the classroom of the time, or hearing the same -- but via so much more intelligent-sounding blather -- come from the lips of the politicians of the day or their mouthpiece, here being put in touch with his emotions via a famous actress of the time  (Borgen's own Sidse Babett Knudsen, above), we're privy to quite a bundle of words and ideas.

1864's great cast includes another Borgen stalwart, Pilou Asbæk (shown at bottom, right), playing here the son of the wealthy landowner in whose employ the family of those two brothers (above) works. Inga is herself the daughter of his estate manager.

Along the way we get some Shakespeare (Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream), plus scene after scene that is, by turns, enchanting, shocking, funny and always rich. By the end of episode two, we're nowhere near war, but if 1864 keeps up its pace and amazements, it is sure to make Danes of us all.

Available via MHz Choice, the series, all by itself, ought to make worthwhile the cost of an entire year of this unusual streaming service -- which is dedicated to the best in international television. For more information on 1864, click here.

Streaming tip: RITA, the must-see, Danish TV series about a memorable -- whew! -- teacher

Forget Our Miss Brooks. Forget Good-bye Mr. Chips. Forget Dead Poet's Society and Mr. Holland's Opus. Forget even the likes The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Looking for Mr. Goodbar. In the annals of entertainment about school teachers, you will never have encountered anything quite like RITA, the Danish television series begun in 2012 and now available to stream via Netflix. In it (and I admit to having seen only the first four episodes, each lasting around 40 minutes), we meet Rita Madsen, a very attractive middle-aged woman who is simply terrific in the classroom but has some trouble family-wise, love-wise, any-wise whenever she leaves that class behind.

What makes Rita so memorable are a number of things, beginning with the Scandinavian openness about sexuality -- in all forms and venues (the bedroom, the kitchen, the office of the school principal: Mr. Conklin never offered anything like this). The Danes treat sex as an important part of life that deserves attention and understanding (and they don't underestimate its comic potential, either). And then there's that terrific performance given by star Mille Dinesen, whom we've seen previously (in Borgen, for instance) but who here has perhaps the role of her lifetime, of which she makes the most.

Created by Christian Torpe (who also wrote a number of the episodes), the series seems bent on being as much a drama as a comedy, and -- so far -- it manages to simultaneously do both genres proud. It's light, lively, and serious, too.

The Danish poster (top) should give you a fine sense of the character of Rita. She smokes -- which is a very bad thing -- yet the smoke rises to form a halo 'round her head. Talk about a conflicted, conflicting character: Rita's the real thing. And the series seems bent on not making her some spectacularly wonderful heroine. As good as she is with the kids, the has her own problems with her immediate family -- including a just-coming-out gay son, a daughter with self-image problems, and an estranged mother, played by the beautiful senior actress Lizbet Lundquist, below). The series shows us how, sometimes, those whose job it is to help others -- and who do this very well -- can't seem to keep their own house in order.

This constant tension between job and family and Rita's need to control and keep everything in line makes for some wonderfully comic and thoughtful situations. Also on hand is a fine supporting cast, including a delightful Lisa Baastrup (below) as the new teacher in town and Carsten Bjørnlund (at bottom) as the very hot principal. No one in the large cast is overdone with either good or bad qualities; consequently each exists as a surprisingly full character.

But it remains Rita, together with Ms Dinesen's crack performance, that gives the series its hook. Rita is as much a problem as she is a solution, and it's this tension that carries everything along. The show is alternately funny and scathing, sweet and sad -- and always somehow believable. This is quite an accomplishment, but one I fear that will shock and dismay viewers who cling to America's oft outmoded ideas on sex and sin, education and family values.

For anyone else, however, Rita is a breath of fresh air. You can catch it -- two full seasons' worth -- on Netflix streaming.

Another MHz Network "find," the unusual Danish TV series, THE EAGLE-a Crime Odyssey, Season 1

TrustMovies only began watching this effective Danish television series, THE EAGLE, last week. Then, while research-ing its origins further, he discovered that it dates back to 2004. Which makes all the more impressive how up-to-date and captivating it still seems. Written by Mai Brostrøm and Peter Thorsboe, with a number of episodes directed by Niels Arden Oplev (who helmed the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, as well as last year's worthwhile Dead Man Down), the series tracks a group of organized-crime fighters, led by Thea, one very pushy broad (a fine Ghita Nørby), and a quite capable inspector named Hallgrim (Jens Albinus, below), who is -- surprise, surprise -- troubled by a mysterious back-story.

It's this back-story that is actually the biggest "flaw" in the otherwise fast-moving and mostly riveting show. We keep getting flashbacks to Hallgrim's time as a child, when something involving his mother (and maybe other family members) happened. It's mostly the same flashback, and we have to watch it with each new episode (I've now viewed five of the ten in the first season), and already these flashbacks are boring. Perhaps, back in 2004, we hadn't seen this sort of thing done quite so often as now.

The series begins as Hallgrim is seated on a plane, above, waiting to take off to visit his sick mother in Iceland. Suddenly, he is called off that plane to tackle a murder investigation (below) in which the murderer has uttered but a single word: Jihad.

From episode to episode, even with new crime to investigate, this first murder and its aftermath continues to resonate. "We're all connected" has more than a mere telephone company commercial at its base. The murderer, in fact (a former KGB top dog now gone rogue, played by Thomas W. Gabrielsson, at left), is quite a character: one of the more accomplished and thus terrifying bad guys to be seen in some time. How this fellow keeps connecting to the various crimes at hand is one of the troubling surprises of the series.

This little group of crime fighters also includes a computer genius played by one of the most adorable young actors I've viewed of late: David Owe (shown above and below, left), as well as a smart and super helpful cop who provides the unit's entry into Denmark's immigrant Muslim world (played by Janus Nabil Bakrahwi, below, right).

Among the women characters, there are plenty of good ones and some bad ones -- a number of whom end up as corpses. (The body count here is rather high.) I am hoping that, as the series continues, the women will occupy a more major place. Right now, other than Ms Nørby and Karen-Lise Mynster as a very political-minded Minister of Justice, nobody registers strongly -- not even the other female detective (Marina Bouras, below, left) who provides the romantic interest for Hallgrim.

Still, the series -- yet another good one from the MHZ Network that seems to specialize in tip-top international television fare, with each of the ten episodes running  just under one hour -- is good enough to keep me watching, for this initial season, at least. The series, via the MHz Network itself, is available here. And its DVD is available here.

New from MHz Networks: the original Danish/ Swedish television collaboration, THE BRIDGE

Don't worry if a television program titled THE BRIDGE (Bron/Broen) sounds somehow familiar, but if its countries of origin -- Sweden and Denmark -- don't immediately come to mind, you're probably thinking of the remade American version that aired last year starring Diane Kruger and Demian Bechir, another season of which is about to begin. TrustMovies didn't watch the American go-round (wanting to wait for the chance to see it commercial-free), though his spouse did and highly recommended it. Then the opportunity came to watch the original Scandinavian series on DVD via the four disc package recently presented by the popular purveyor of quality foreign television, MHz Networks.

Operating on the assumption that an original might be better than a remake (we won't even go into comparisons of American television vis a vis European, as in Borgen vs The West Wing), I took a chance on The Bridge, and I am awfully glad that I did. This is a superior police procedural/mystery/family drama that grabs you from its first hour-long episode and holds you through to the finale (there are ten episodes in all). And it is an actual finale, by the way: none of this pretend-to-end business, as in the American remake of The Killing.

My partner, in fact, sat down to watch some of the first episode with me, and then checked in periodically for a few minutes during several others. "The American version seems to have followed this one almost completely," he noted, but admitted after a time that the original was better done than its follow-up. That may be due to location. The story begins with the body of a murdered woman, above, found exactly in the middle of a bridge separating Sweden and Denmark. One half of her body lies in Sweden, the other in Denmark. In the American version, the locale is the U.S. and Mexico -- two countries hugely different from each other, while Scandinavia is fairly similar culturally from country to country.

Although directed and written by a number of different people, the series stays steadfast and true to itself for the entire season. So carefully conceived and acted are all the characters that it is difficult to determine much variation in style throughout. Finding the murderer of the woman on the bridge -- and other murders to come -- is paramount here, but within that search a number of sub-plots surface, some directly connected to our main one, others seemingly not so much. All are fascinating and executed very well.

The two lead characters -- one cop from Sweden (Sofia Helen, above, left), the other from Denmark (Kim Bodnia, above, right) -- are beautifully played and keep the series rolling forward. She has something akin to Asperger syndrome, though the medical name is never stated. How he comes to understand and appreciate her (she's terrifically good at her job) is part of the joy of the series. The two leads are not nearly so conventionally attractive as are Kruger and Bichir in the American version, and this helps keep things more believable. Their acting is very strong, however (particularly Ms Helen), as is that of every last character on view.

By the time this first series wraps up, we've been thrust into lives that have been turned upside down, sometimes for good. This is a very dark show, but with numerous flecks of humor scattered throughout. (How our leading lady goes about trolling for sex is one of the highlights -- as believable as it is initially surprising.)

As in life, we cannot count on much of anything, and while coincidence does play a part here, it is never foremost in the scheme of things (a la Downton Abbey). Instead, character and past performance create the present experience, and it is not, for the most part, a pretty one.

The Bridge can be purchased now via MHz Networks and elsewhere. Click here to order.