Borgen vs Borgen: Power and Glory — is it a new show, and do you need to watch the original first?
Sidse Babett Knudsen once joked about when Borgen would come back, and she was off by a year.
Borgen aired on Danish public broadcaster DR from 2010 to 2013, three seasons and 30 episodes created by Adam Price. Knudsen played Birgitte Nyborg, a centrist party leader who becomes Denmark's first female prime minister. The show was made for a Danish audience and got sold to more than 190 countries. In 2020, Netflix bought the global streaming rights to the first three seasons and signed on as a partner for a new one. Borgen – Power & Glory premiered on DR on February 13, 2022, and on Netflix on June 2, 2022.
It's not a new show
Power & Glory is season 4. Netflix lists it as a separate title with its own "season 1," which is where the confusion starts. The Danish name is Borgen – Riget, magten og æren, "the kingdom, the power and the glory," a line from the Lord's Prayer.
The story picks up about ten years after the original finale. Season 3 ended with Birgitte's new party, the New Democrats, winning 13 seats and Birgitte taking the job of foreign minister. Season 4 opens with her still in it, now serving under a prime minister about ten years younger than she is.
Then oil turns up in Greenland. Greenland's leaders see a path to independence, Birgitte's party sees its green agenda in danger, and the US, China and Russia all want in.
Who's back, and who isn't
Most of the core is there:
- Sidse Babett Knudsen as Birgitte Nyborg, who had vowed season 3 would be her last.
- Birgitte Hjort Sørensen as Katrine Fønsmark, now back in journalism as head of news at TV1.
- Søren Malling as Torben Friis.
- Magnus, Birgitte's son, now grown up and played by a new actor, Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen.
The big absence is Kasper Juul, Pilou Asbæk's spin doctor and the father of Katrine's son. He gets one mention, in episode 5: Katrine says he lives mostly in London and is barely part of their son's life. Asbæk had already broken the news on Twitter in 2020: "Sadly I won't be part of it."
Do you need to watch the original first?
The plot doesn't require it. The Greenland crisis is new, it starts and ends within eight episodes, and the show re-introduces everyone who matters.
What the original gives you is the Birgitte who's missing. Price's plan for season 4 was to drag his idealists into a harsher decade.
"I wanted to basically throw (the characters) into the fire," Price told AFP.
In season 4, Birgitte holds on to power by letting go of her principles one at a time, and the season works best if you remember her having them. Knudsen put the difference plainly: "The world of Borgen has always been a little bit more idealistic, kinder." Without seasons 1 to 3, you get a sharp political thriller. With them, you get to watch the woman you rooted for turn into the politicians she used to beat.
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If 30 episodes is too much, season 1 alone is enough to set up the fall. It's where Birgitte wins the job, and where Katrine and Kasper start.
Will there be a season 5?
Nothing has been announced. Season 4 ends with Birgitte resigning as party leader and foreign minister, with a hint that she's headed to Brussels as Denmark's next European Commissioner. Knudsen sounded final about it.
"You should never say never, but I think this is the end," Knudsen said.
For the record: when Borgen wrapped in 2013, Knudsen's parting joke to Price was "Well, see you in 10 years, Adam." Season 4 arrived nine years later.
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