Israeli TV: Terrifying ‘Tehran,’ a Turkish train and a moving mystery

Almost any discussion of the story of 'Tehran' would reveal spoilers, but I can say that the suspense hinges on all kinds of situations that seem plausible.

By HANNAH BROWN
Young Israeli actress Niv Sultan takes the lead role in Tehran, playing Tamar Rabinyan, a Mossad computer hacker-agent (photo credit: COURTESY KAN 11)
Young Israeli actress Niv Sultan takes the lead role in Tehran, playing Tamar Rabinyan, a Mossad computer hacker-agent
(photo credit: COURTESY KAN 11)
If you’re trying to stop biting your nails, you should probably skip Tehran, the new series that is running on KAN 11 on Mondays at 9:15 p.m., when two episodes are released – but that’s the only reason not to watch it. This series, which will available at some point on Apple TV, will appeal to anyone who enjoys Fauda. It’s action-packed and gripping from the first moments.
It focuses on Tamar (Niv Sultan), a Mossad agent who goes undercover in Tehran, and unlike some series that spend a long time setting up the basic plot, this one streaks out of the gate like a thoroughbred racehorse. Almost any discussion of the story would reveal spoilers, but I can say that the suspense hinges on all kinds of situations that seem plausible, like a young Israeli couple setting off for their dream trip to India on a Jordanian Air flight to save money, but their dream turns into a nightmare as their plane has mechanical trouble and is diverted to the nearest airport, which happens to be Tehran.
The cast is terrific and mixes well-known Israeli actors such as Sultan, Menashe Noy (Our Boys) and Liraz Charhi (Turn Left at the End of the World), who portray the Mossad team in Israel, with Iranian actors. The latter include such familiar faces to Homeland viewers as Navid Negahban, who played Abu Nazir and Shaun Toub, a Jewish actor who played the treacherous Javadi in Homeland’s later seasons.
The series is in Farsi and Hebrew with a little English (maybe 10%) and has only Hebrew titles. Those who need an English translation will have to wait until Apple releases it, but anyone who has conversational Hebrew and can read road signs should give it a try. It isn’t talky and if you go to the KAN 11 website, you can watch it online and then pause if there is a long title in Hebrew that you need to read slowly. Better yet, watch it with someone who is fluent in Hebrew. But don’t miss it.
Whoever programs the recommendations algorithm for Netflix seems to have a steep learning curve, and Netflix keeps pushing me to watch a lot of reality series about housewives or 20-somethings on the beach. However, if you ignore the recommendations and hunt around, you can find something worthwhile in the streaming service’s vast offerings such as the Turkish film, One Way to Tomorrow. It’s a drama by Ozan Açiktan about a young man, Ali (Metin Akdülger), and a woman, Leyla (Dilan Çiçek Deniz), who meet on a train on the way to a wedding. It turns out that both of them have complex reasons for wanting to attend the wedding and just when you think you know exactly where the story is going, it shifts a bit. There is rapid-fire dialogue that isn’t always well translated and there are some digressions about Turkish culture and literature that few outside of Turkey will understand, but it’s still quirky and enjoyable.
There are so many true-crime series, but HBO’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark – on Yes Docu on Mondays at 10, Yes VOD and Sting TV, and on Cellcom TV – is a cut above the rest. Directed and produced by Liz Garbus, a filmmaker who has made an extraordinary slate of documentaries, including The Farm, it focuses on Michelle McNamara, a writer who became obsessed with a cold case, that of the Golden State Killer, a serial murderer and rapist who terrorized communities in California in the 70s and 80s. She wrote articles on the case and was working on a book about it when she died in 2016 of what was deemed an accidental overdose of medications. Her widower, comedian/actor Patton Oswalt, worked with true-crime writers to make sure the book was completed, and just a few months after it was published in 2018, a suspect in the case was finally arrested.
In interviews, McNamara talks about what sparked her interest in the case and how this interest connected her to other cold-case fanatics, some of whom were able to give her pieces that helped her put the puzzle together.