Jesus og Josefine (meaning Jesus and Josefine) is a Danish julekalender TV series that first aired in 2005. It tells the story of Josefine, a young girl from 21st century Denmark who finds a time machine and travels back in time to Nazareth in the year AD 12, where she meets Jesus.
Jesus falls in love with her and at first she uses it to get Jesus to prohibit food she does not like and tries to get him to change his birthday (Josefine's birthday is the 24th of December, and she feels she never gets the attention she deserves). But then she also falls in love with him and starts showing him what he can really do (walk on water, heal the blind etc.). He also travels to 21st century Denmark and meet her family. But gradually Jesus begins to suspect that Josefine is hiding something about his destiny.
And is Thorsen, the owner of the time machine, just a nice old man with a grudge against Christmas, or ...
Tropes
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Josefines brother, Lukas.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Overboen attempts to do this on Josefine so she won't fix the future. Keyword "attempt".
- Artistic License – History: Pardos the Gladiator mentions the Colosseum, which was not built until AD 70-80.
- Dragged Off to Hell: How Josefine and Oskar gets rid of Thorson once and for all.
- Eternal English: Apparently Jesus spoke Danish, as did the Romans. Except for the word "OK", which is unknown in the past until Josefine introduces it.
- Fate Worse than Death: Thorson gets sent to "den allerdybeste kul kælder" (the deepest coal basement) in the semi-final episode.
- Meanwhile, in the Future…: Played completely straight; when a day passes in the present, a day also passes in the past.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Thorson confronts Josefine and Oskar in the church and opens a portal to the deepest coal basement with the intent of sending the pair down there to shovel coal for eternity. He is the one who gets sent there instead.
- Satan: Thorsen is heavily implied to be him in disguise. However, it is never directly stated that he is indeed Satan. He does introduce himself as Natas at one point.
- Meaningful Name: Thorsen. His name literally means "Son of Thor", the pagan god. It gives a hint to his later role in the story.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Josefine has one after she reveals what will happen to Jesus. She gets another one upon witnessing the dystopian future world she has created as a result.
- Rage Breaking Point: Jesus storms off when Josefine confesses that he's destined to be crucified.
- Running Gag: Josefine is constantly disturbed just before she goes to sleep, usually by Lukas.
- Shout-Out: Many to the Bible, both obvious and more subtle:
- Jesus healing lepers (e.g. Matthew 8:1-4).
- Jesus healing the blind (e.g. Matthew 9:27-29)
- Jesus turns Lukas' one cookie into many (e.g. Mark 8: 5-8 and John 6:8-11)
- Jesus mentioning that Joseph is pretty enthusiastic about his skill to make wine out of water (John 2:1-11)
- Jesus does not want to tell people what they should eat (Mark 7:18).
- The Roman Centurion that chases Jesus and Josefine away grumbles that "nothing good ever comes out of Nazareth" (John 1:46).
- The Tempter turning stone into bread in the desert (Matthew 4:3).
- Joseph explaining that he is a descendant of King David (Matthew 1:6-16)
- Jesus has two close friends: Simon, whose father is a fisherman and Judas, who is kind of shifty and very interested in money.
- Tom the Dark Lord: The evil, tyrannical ruler of the dystopian future world are referred to as Overboen (The Guy Upstairs).
