Dear Compatriots (Seasons 1–2)

Dear Compatriots (Kjære landsmenn, 2021) is a Norwegian political comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Hallvar Witzø, it follows King Johan as he discovers that less than half the country thinks he's doing a good job.

Johan (Atle Antonsen) has followed the royal playbook to the letter — public appearances, birthday telegrams to centenarians, the right kind of handshake. When Norway's biggest newspaper runs a poll and finds only 48 percent still back the monarchy, the king launches his own survey to disprove it. The numbers come back worse. To top it off, the newly elected prime minister is a card-carrying republican, and Queen Izabella (Ine Jansen) is left trying to manage the fallout while the palace scrambles for a plan.

The comedy works because it never goes broad — Norwegian self-satisfaction is skewered from the inside, with enough warmth that you end up rooting for a king who genuinely cannot understand why his people don't love him. Stream Dear Compatriots (2021) online on iFILM.