A new revolution in TV
Anika Molnar/Netflix
A new Israeli series, Unorthodox, just started last week on Netflix. It is a deeply moving story of a young woman (played by Shira Haas, Ruchami from Shtisel) from the Hassidic community in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, who tries to escape from her constricting world.
Unorthodox is part of a revolution in television. In the last few years, the schedules have offered more international dramas: Scandi-noir, European detective shows, new Israeli series (Fouda, Shtisel, Unorthodox) and brilliant new German series like Berlin Babylon.
Anyone over thirty will remember a time when British television was largely in English. There were, of course, exceptions during the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. Remarkable documentaries by Syberberg (Hitler: A Film From Germany), Marcel Ophuls (The Sorrow and the Pity) and Claude Lanzmann (Shoah), accomplished children’s programmes (Belle and Sebastian) and great TV dramas like Heimat. These were largely arthouse TV programmes, many about fascism and the Holocaust, entirely confined to BBC2 and Channel 4.
What has happened in the last ten years has been an explosion in foreign-language drama, especially thrillers and detective programmes. This was initially led by BBC2 and Channel 4, but now the pace has been set by Netflix. Scandi-noir led the way with detective series like Wallander (2005-13). The Killing (2007-12) and The Bridge (2011-18). Their success led to new imports: detective series from France (BBC4, 2009-) and Italy (Montalbano, BBC4 2012-).
What has really changed, however, is the range of formats and the new countries of origin. First, the formats. Instead of cop shows we suddenly have new TV series on Netflix: French series about casting agents (Call My Agent!), German series about Weimar Berlin (Berlin Babylon) and Israeli series about orthodox Jews in Brooklyn or Jerusalem (Unorthodox and Shtisel), mostly in Yiddish, about Mossad (Fouda) and double agents (The Spy with Sacha Baron Cohen). Not a detective in sight. It’s true that Berlin Babylon involves policemen but it also involves Trotskyists, German military plotters, cabaret singers, prostitutes and politicians.
What is also striking is the sudden explosion of Israeli and German TV dramas. You may not have heard of the Israeli show Prisoners of War (Hatufim) but you will have heard of the American spin-off, Homeland, a huge TV hit in America and in Britain, with Damian Lewis, Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin, now into its eighth season on Channel 4. It opened doors for shows like Fauda, about a team of Israeli soldiers battling with Palestinian terrorists, When Heroes Fly, about a group of Israeli veterans who try and rescue the former girlfriend of one of them from a drug cartel in Colombia, and the super-niche Shtisel, a drama about an Orthodox Jewish family living in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem. They have all been on Netflix recently, along with The Spy, about Eli Cohen, a real-life Israeli spy in the Middle East in the 1950s and ‘60s.
Shtisel was the most unlikely hit of all. A third series is on its way and it was such a success that Amazon Studios have announced that they are planning to remake it.
German TV has also made a big splash, above all, Berlin Babylon, co-produced by Sky, which has just screened the third season. You might call it Weimar noir but what’s fascinating about it is the historical complexity. Reichswehr veterans with friends in high places plot to overthrow the republican government, Soviet agents hunt anti-Stalinists in Berlin, and the German police try and chase both.
Suddenly, European and Israeli TV drama seem more sophisticated and interesting than a lot of British or American TV, some of which is copying imported formats. Homeland copied an Israeli series, Broadwalk modelled itself on Scandi-noir. These new pioneering series are introducing trans-Atlantic audiences to a new world and there’s no going back. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle.
