2017 MHz Choice Year in Review

We began the year with a rundown of the most watched episodes in 2016 and nursed our wounds over the final episodes of Beck by learning that there is much more to Swedish actor Peter Haber than meets the eye! Read: Peter Haber: More Than Beck. And speaking of Mr. Haber, it turns out he’s not quite done with the seminal Swedish detective as it’s recently been announced that 4 new episodes of Beck starring Peter Haber and Kristofer Hivju will be premiering in 2018!

February brought the premiere of Corp + Anam, the first Irish language TV drama to screen in America as well as season 6 of the brilliant A French Village on Valentine’s Day. We also saw the first of a number of press mentions as MHz Choice was profiled in Emmy® Magazine!

In March, we added yet another country to our expanding list of nations with The Scent of Rain in the Balkans, the first TV series from Serbia released in the United States. And more press coverage! The good folks a Decider offered this profile of MHz Choice and Mike Hale from the NY Times took a look at Corp + Anam.

We rang in this past Spring with a totally revamped DVD store and the blockbuster release of The Bridge: Season 3 on DVD! We also welcomed a brand new Amazon Fire TV app and premiered Lampedusa – an Italian mini-series tackling the issues surrounding a refugee crisis starring Claudio Amendola and Peppino Mazzotta from Detective Montalbano.

May saw the return of Max and Freddy in Season 2 of Tatort: Cologne, Germany’s longest running drama series. (More Max and Freddy coming in 2018!) MHz Choice also got a nice mention in this NY Times’ Watching article: 4 New Ways to Stream Great European TV!

In June, we welcomed two new feature length films in Andrea Camilleri’s Detective Montalbano series and we’re looking forward to new Montalbano films coming in 2018! We also heard from many of our subscribers that new French series Magellan was a hit! We’ve got our eye on new Magellan episodes coming in 2018 as well! We also got a welcome break from our offices and pressed the flesh with some wonderful folks at the Baltimore Italian Festival! And sadly, June ended with the sad news of the passing of Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist.

In July, we published an interview with Norwegian actor Kristofer Hivju on the set of Beck where he unwittingly gave us a new tag line: “Don’t fear the subtitles”. Speaking of Scandinavia, July saw the U.S. premieres of two acclaimed Swedish dramas on MHz Choice: Blue Eyes and Thicker Than Water. The NY Times gave a shout out to Magellan and we also received the very sad news of the passing of Detective Montalbano actor Marcello Perracchio.

Season 4 of MHz Choice subscriber favorite The Undertaker premiered in August as well as Italian murder mystery series Bulletproof Heart starring Italian megastar actor Gigi Proietti. We also offered our take on the best TV series to learn French and added Android TV to the expanding ways to watch MHz Choice on your TV.

In September, after many months of hard work by our Programming folks, we were thrilled to announce the availability of MHz Choice in Canada! We also premiered epic Danish war drama 1864, which yielded an overwhelming positive response from our subscribers as well as this mention in the NY Times and this one in Christianity Today.

In October, we premiered 2 new series, 2 new seasons of returning series and 2 new documentaries. Helena Bergström (the original Annika Bengtzon) appeared in Missing, which the NY Times called “polished and well acted”, and two-part German drama A Dangerous Fortune, based on a novel by blockbuster author Ken Follet had MHz Choice subscribers’ “engrossed”. Continuing on the German theme, we shared our thoughts on the best TV series to learn German, crossed over 15,000 likes on Facebook and finished the month with the Top 5 Spookiest Episodes on MHz Choice!

In November, we got two big pieces of news – season 2 of Norwegian crime thriller Mammon won the International Emmy® for Best Drama Series AND we announced that season 2 of Mammon will premiere on MHz Choice in 2018! Nero Wolfe, based on the classic detective stories of author Rex Stout, made its premiere and quickly became one of our most popular series to date! We also shared our gift ideas for the holiday season and answered the vexing question, “Hey, MHz Choice, Why Only One Season?”

So that brings us to the last month of the year. I hesitate to say we “saved the best for last” but considering the sheer volume of email and social media posts about the final season of A French Village we get, you’ll forgive us if we make that judgment! We started off December with long awaited news that MHz Choice will be premiering season 7 of A French Village on January 30^th! Also in December we premiered Transatlantic Ties, a two-part Italian miniseries based on the true story of Boris Giuliano, a legendary Sicilian policeman who boldly took on the Mafia, and season 2 of lovable doof, Inspector Coliandro.

If you haven’t had chance yet, have a look at our partial list of what’s coming in 2018 (lots more to be added) and don’t forget, now is the perfect time to pick up that MHz Choice gift subscription for the mystery lover in your life!

Cheers, good health & peace in 2018 from the gang at MHz Choice!