TV Land Boom Driven By Stars, And More

Michael Hedges March 9, 2022 Follow on Twitter

TV land has long had a warm spot for re-runs. Viewers have just been warm, except during holiday seasons. Drama and comedy series generally run a few seasons then disappear. Attempts to prop-up a series with new faces and locations, common with reality TV series, only hold the ratings together so long. The Netflix era has complimented all this: blockbusters are the main draw for viewers who occasionally like to revisit old favorites. It’s a great business.

UK TV broadcaster Channel 4, appreciated for risky programming behavior, began broadcasting (March 6) the foreign comedy/drama series Servant of the People. It is a three season, 51 episode series about a history teacher becoming president of a country rather by accident. It was produced by a local company and broadcast on a local TV channel first in 2015. The rest, as we say, is history.

“Critics may have been prepared to be generous to Servant of the People on its arrival to UK screens on Channel 4, but it hardly needs it,” wrote film and TV critic Dan Einav for the Financial Times (March 7), the paragon of journalistic seriousness. “It is also very funny.” He goes on to compare the episode favorably to “the Marx Brothers’ classic Duck Soup. It will make you laugh as it simultaneously breaks your heart.” Many reviewers quote Oscar Wilde: Life imitates art. The New Yorker (March 5) compared it to Bennie Hill and referred to postmodernism.

For those who have been totally immersed in recent months counting and trading their cryptocurrencies, Servant of the People was produced by and starred Volodymyr Zelensky, currently president of Ukraine and engaged in a very serious war with the Russian Federation. His production company Kvartal 95 produced the series, originally in the Ukrainian and Russian languages. It was first broadcast on Ukraine TV channel 1+1, principally owned sanctioned billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky. The Channel 4 replay has English subtitles like the YouTube and the previously offered Netflix showings.

With events of the last two weeks elevating President Zelensky’s status and reputation to worldwide prominence, several television broadcasters took option rights for Servant of the People, reported its international distributor Stockholm-based Eccho Rights. “It’s quite an old show already,” said managing partner Nicola Söderlund to AP (March 7). “But, of course, given the circumstances, it’s become very, very, very interesting for everybody.” Eccho Rights is donating a portion of the newly accumulated right fees to the Ukrainian Red Cross.

Other recent takers for Servant of the People include the Greek national TV network ANT1, Romanian national channel Pro TV and satellite broadcaster Middle East Broadcasting (MBC) for the Middle East. French/German cultural channel ARTE ran several episodes in 2021 and has recently continued. The series briefly aired on Belarus state TV in 2019. Russian channel TNT broadcast one episode a few years ago before shelving it after censors noted a joke about Russian president Vladimir V. Putin.

Few TV stars actually become politicians. The hours are long and pay is worse. B-list actors more often migrate to politics in the US. Ronald Reagan became president. Jesse “The Body” Ventura, star of Big Time Wrestling, became governor of Minnesota. There have been others but not many outside the US. Again, to quote New Yorkers’ David Remnick, “postmodernism.”

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