Israeli drama rides Scandinavian wave

By Michael Pickard 12-03-2012

It’s very unlikely that the president of the United States of America finds a lot of time to relax in front of the television, so when Barack Obama counts himself a big fan of a particular series, it must have something going for it.

That accolade was given to Homeland, US cablenet Showtime’s remake of Israeli series Prisoners of War (aka Hatufim), which won multiple awards and plaudits during its first season. A second has been commissioned.

From some of the executive producers behind Fox’s 24 franchise, which turned Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer character into a one-man army against terrorism, this is altogether a more thoughtful and tense affair.

In the UK, Homeland hadn’t even begun its 12-week run on terrestrial network Channel 4 before it was being heralded as the next big unmissable drama from the US.

But unlike so many that have come before it, this one stood up to the hype and earned rave reviews, particularly for Claire Dane’s performance, which has already won her a Golden Globe. More than two million people tuned into the first episode.

Viewers will now have the chance to watch the original Israeli series after diginet Sky Arts picked up the rights. It has also begun airing BeTipul, the show that was the inspiration for HBO’s In Treatment.

HBO has also remade The Naked Truth, picked up by Israeli distributor Armoza Formats and now being adapted by HBO Poland and another channel in Turkey. The plot follows a team of police officers investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl from a wealthy family.

And the influx of Israeli drama into UK television is now mirroring the wave of Scandinavian crime series that hit the country last year.

However, whereas Homeland began airing before Hatufim was picked up, diginet BBC4 had already shown the first season of Danish drama The Killing before Channel 4 announced it had bought the US adaptation, produced by Fox Television and Fuse Entertainment for cablenet AMC.

BBC4 has now made a name for itself by acquiring a whole slate of Scandinavia drama, regularly scheduling subtitled series in its Saturday 2100 slot.

The second season of The Killing, produced in Denmark by pubcaster DR, soon followed, ahead of DR’s political drama Borgen earlier this year. Season two of Borgen will air this winter, following the arrival of SVT series The Bridge and Sebastian Bergman.

Another diginet, ITV3, has also followed this trend and recently started airing Those Who Kill, produced by Denmark’s Miso Film for local broadcaster TV2.

The number of subtitled shows now on air in the UK comes down to not just their appeal in the wake of an English-language remake but to the strength of the original productions. Only one question remains: where will the next big series come from?

Further to Homeland’s success in the US, television executives casting their eye over this year’s network pilots will see more influence from Israel with two shows in development based on Israeli formats.

Midnight Sun, which is being produced by Universal Television for NBC, is based on the series Pillars of Smoke, about a female FBI cult specialist who investigates the mysterious disappearance of a commune in Alaska, which leads to a bigger conspiracy.

Meanwhile, The CW has ordered Joey Dakota, an adaptation of Danny Hollywood, about a filmmaker who travels back to the 1990s where she meets and falls in love with her rock star documentary subject. When she returns to the present, she must find a way to go back to the past to prevent his death.

The Netherlands will also be represented in the US pilot season by ABC’s take on Endemol-owned NL Film’s Penoza, about a widow who takes up her husband’s place in the criminal underworld to protect her family.

Casting is now being finalised for each pilot, and following the success Dustin Hoffman has found in HBO’s horse-racing drama Luck, a host of other Hollywood stars have been lined up for this season’s newest shows.

Malin Akerman has been on TV before, most notably in The Comeback, but has most recently been in demand by film studios following appearances in The Heartbreak Kid, Watchmen and The Proposal. She is now penciled in for ABC comedy The Smart One, about a brilliant and successful executive (played by Portia de Rossi) who goes to work for her less-brainy but more popular sister (Akerman), a former beauty queen and weather girl who is now a city mayor.

Elsewhere, The Rookie star Dennis Quaid will appear in the untitled CBS drama about the life of former-actor-turned-sheriff Ralph Lamb. And Kevin Bacon will take the lead in Kevin Williamson’s untitled FBI pilot for Fox.

As cable television continues to raise the bar through the quality of its original and adapted series, more and more big-name actors are seeing the appeal of the small screen. It just remains to be seen who the next Hollywood A-Lister unable to resist the lure of television might be.