The drama department of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation DR started 2009 with a new hit on its hands. The first episodes of its new DR1 Drama series Livvagterne (the Bodyguards) was seen by over 1.4m Danes on January 1, and last Sunday by almost 1.6 million, a viewing rate on par with the records hold previously by Forbrydelsen (The Killing).

With a 50.6% share of audience on New Year day, Livvagterne was seen by half of the Danish households with their television switched on DR1 between 8pm and 9pm. Not only did Livvagterne score with the local viewers; it also received rave reviews from the leading national newspapers. "Drama is our flagship with news programmes," said Ulla Pors Nielsen, (photo) Head of DR1 to ‘extrabladet.dk'. "It is very important for us as a public service channel, to show that we can produce something of high quality."

Livvagterne is the last and third part of the crime trilogy written by successful duo Mai Brostrøm and Peter Thorsboes. The first two TV dramas also produced for DR, were Rejseholdet (Unit One) and Ørnen (The Eagle), both winners of Emmy awards. The new 20 episode TV series focuses on the three bodyguards Jamila El Murad (Cecilie Stenspil), Rasmus Poulsen (Søren Vejby) and Jonas Goldschmidt (André Babikian) and their mission to defend the Danish Minister of Defense when his life comes under threat.

Livvagterne was put together by the same team behind Rejseholdet and Ørnen, producer Sven Clausen, editor Kirsten Koch and music composer Jacob Groth. Four directors took part in the production: Mikkel Serup (episodes 1, 2, 9,10), Søren Kragh-Jacobsen (episodes 3, 4), Martin Schmidt (5, 6) and Kasper Gaardsøe (7, 8). The first ten episodes will be broadcast on DR1 on 2009 and the following ten from January 2010. The TV series has already been sold to NRK in Norway, SVT in Sweden and ZDF in Germany.