Something to watch tonight: Tuesday 10 June
Occupied (2016-2019)
Occupied was one of the first series we really binged. Season One came out in New Zealand on DVD/Blu-ray from Madman and we thoroughly enjoyed the “what if” conceit of the thing:
The show teeters between preposterous and plausible but by the second half of the season we were watching three episodes a night so it would be fair to say we were gripped and the final episode ended so abruptly that my wife and I started searching the box for missing discs.
That quote comes from my 2016 RNZ review of the first season, as does this introduction to the premise:
The Greens have won power in Norway and Prime Minister Jesper Berg (Henrik Mestad) is making good on his party’s promise to convert their energy economy from carbon to clean (nuclear) Thorium and then make that technology available to anyone who wants it. The European Union decides that a unilateral turning off of the gas tap is too great a risk to their member states but that direct intervention would be a bad look.
However Russia, Norway’s almost-totalitarian neighbour to the North-east, isn’t very concerned about looking bad and is able to apply considerable pressure to the naïve politician – firstly in the form of simple kidnapping and then thuggery, threats and – in the form of ambassador Sidorova (Ingeborga Dapkunaite) – a little bit of charm.
There’s a lesson here for the United Kingdom post-Brexit. If you’re not at the table you can never really know for sure what people are saying about you and that’s a problem when the table is saying, in effect, we need a regime change.
Seasons Two and Three were rushed into production for Netflix1 and it showed. We were still highly entertained, as my review of the second season indicates:
As we reconvene, former-PM Jesper Berg (Henrik Mestad) has been ousted and is in exile in Sweden. His former chief-of-staff Anita Rygh (Janne Heltberg) combines conjugal visits with attempts to keep him in contact with Norwegian political realities but their romantic entanglement seems doomed. Conflicted restaurateur Bente Norum (Ane Dahl Torp) now owns a hotel patronised by oligarchs and is in love with the head of Russian security. Former prime-ministerial bodyguard Hans Martin Djupvik (Eldar Skar) is now head of state security but seems to owe secret favours to everybody – including the majestic Russian ambassador Sidorova (Ingeborga Dapkunaite) who is playing everyone off against each other.
The violent resistance is organised via chat sessions inside an online first-person-shooter (set in a recognisably Nordic environment). The actual military is frustrated that they can’t join the fight and many Norwegian citizens are guiltily enjoying the roubles the Russians bring and turning a blind-eye to the Greenhouse Effect.
This season of Occupied is even bigger than the first – a co-production with French, Belgian and Danish television as well as the international might of Netflix. It’s gorgeous to look at – Oslo’s modern architecture is strikingly photogenic throughout – although you can tell the producers have sometimes struggled to maintain snow continuity.
Season Three was released in 2019 but Netflix decided to keep it some kind of secret:
So, why didn’t Netflix alert me of its existence?
Perhaps because it isn’t as good as the first two seasons? Although quality or embarrassment doesn’t appear to get in the way of many Netflix recommendations. It’s a shame that season three isn’t as good as One (Two wasn’t as good as One either but still pretty gripping). The premise is fantastic and the characterisations – especially the conflicted environmentalist politician Jesper Berg (Henrik Mestad) – are mostly top notch.
But in this six-episode season, motivations are increasingly inconceivable and the sheer over-plottedness swamps any decent psychological insight. What started out as several strands of a society under extreme stress, now feels the need to wrap those strands up together as if they are all part of the same giant plot.
It’s still a tremendous watch and gave us a desire to visit Norway that remains unabated. As mentioned above, the architecture in particular is spectacular.
I recently read about a Taiwanese show that is similarly speculative – Zero Day is about a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Only one episode has dropped, so far, and not on any of the local streamers, but I’m curious to see how it fares.
Where to watch Occupied
Aotearoa, Australia, Canada, USA & UK: Streaming on Prime Video
Ireland: Not currently available online
India: Not currently available online
As you can see from the “Where to watch” data above, Occupied is no longer on Netflix but is available on Prime Video in many territories.