Israel’s New Thriller TV Series “Tehran” Becomes Global Hit

By Ellen Cans

Israel’s new drama “Tehran” aired this summer in Israel, achieving great popularity. The series was picked up by Apple TV+ in June, in partnership with Cineflix Rights and the Israeli network Kan 11. The shows began streaming across the globe on Sept. 25, with new episodes premiering every Friday.

“Tehran” follows the character, Tamar Rabinyan, an Iranian spy, sent into Iran on her first deep-cover mission to help organize an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program. As reported by the NY Times, the show’s creator, Moshe Zonder, admitted that his show’s success in Israel was out of his hands. In Israel, when the show began to air, there were mysterious blasts which took place at military or strategic locations across Iran. Foreign policy experts suggested that the explosions may have been the doing of Israeli covert operations in an effort to thwart the Islamic country’s nuclear aspirations. This explanation helped the show and the simultaneous timing did its thing in helping the show make a boom of its own. “It was a bombing, and then an episode in our show, and then another bombing, and it kept going like this,” said Zonder in a telephone interview from Tel Aviv. “Everyone reacted and said, ‘Oh, Tamar Rabinyan is working!’”

Of course, “Tehran” has merits of its own. It steers from the traditional Israeli shows by giving the lead spy role to a woman, Israeli actress Niv Sultan. “This world of espionage thrillers is usually so manly,” said Zonder, who was also the head writer of popular Israeli Thriller “Fauda. Having a young and femine protagonist forced him and his co-writer, Omri Shenhar, to rethink the strategies a spy would utilize in trying times. “When she got into trouble and she had conflicts, she needed to decide and act on what she could do as a woman in order to stay alive,” Zonder said. “It was just as much as an adventure for us, sitting together and writing her, making her decisions.”

The show, filmed in Athens in Farsi, English and Hebrew, also stars Shaun Toub and Navid Negahban, both Iranian-Americans actors from “Homeland”. The imaginative and thrilling show required many of those involved in the film to take extensive language lessons. Cultural and social details were also studied and emulated closely.

Israeli intelligence officials have attested that the show’s fantastical plots are entertaining, but extremely unrealistic and do not ring true in regards to the covert missions. Israel is now one of the most prolific exporters of television to the U.S.