Billed as a European rendition of well-scripted, nicely-cast and original gritty crime series such as `The Wire' and the most engrossing police thriller since 'The Killing,' there has never been a series quite like 'The Team'.

With an original script and play directly inspired by Europol agency working methods, viewers will follow the trails of a crack, multi-lingual team as they fight crime across the continent.

An original European production

With series like 'The Killing', 'The Bridge' and 'Borgen' reaping global acclaim, the Scandinavian Noir genre has blazed trails for more successful TV productions and shown that language is no barrier to the international success of 'made in Europe' fiction. And 'The Team' adds something new to the mix. It is the first genuine 'European' series of its kind, co-produced by 11 media organisations from eight EU Member States and involving six public service broadcasters. Funding by the EU’s Creative Europe Media Programme has also contributed to this unique project, in the hope that it will not remain the only 'pan-European' series of its kind.

Organized crime

'The Team' follows the complex story of the people who fight organized crime. Their work crosses European borders; it is a world where drugs, money and even people change hands. The action follows a JIT, or Joint Intelligence Team, as they unravel the tangled threads linking the murders of three young women in Denmark, Germany and Belgium. The story gets more complicated when it becomes clear that the personal is entangled with the professional in the most intimate of ways.

Leading the way for a batch of new TV series

“Producing a compelling TV series has become gold on the global audiovisual market and it is great to see Europe show its talent and potential to create high quality, original programmes,” said EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre. “It is an ambitious, collaborative project and the success of a series like ‘The Team’ shows that when public service media and Eurovision come together, they can produce something fantastic.”

Welcoming the launch of the series, EBU Media Director Annika Nyberg Frankenhaeuser said: “There is a solid history of co-production in the genre, but this is the first time European expertise has been shared to such an extent. The broadcasters started out with an audacious experiment which today has already shown that we can expect more great ‘pan-European’ co-productions in the future.”