The Best TV Shows on Yle TV1

Ihmebantu is a Finnish black humor sketch show.

A satirical spy comedy. Aleksis Nyqvist, an intern at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is pushed to the head of Finland's newly founded secret service, when a suitable dummy is needed for the position. However, Nyqvist identifies with his role too well and accidentally causes a security political crisis - and soon Helsinki is swarming with secret agents. How is Nyqvist doing?

Invisible Heroes tells the heroic tale of young Finnish diplomats in Chile during 1973’s infamous military coup. Finnish diplomats Tapani Brotherus and Ilkka Jaamala along with Tapani’s wife Lysa Brotherus helped over 2000 left-wing Chileans escape the military junta’s persecution. The Finns acted without official authorization while Swedish ambassador Harald Edelstam was the most visible defendant of human rights with the backing of Sweden’s Prime Minister, Olof Palme.

The story of DI Kari Sorjonen of the Serious Crime Unit in Lappeenranta, his family, and his investigations into a variety of harrowing homicides around the border area.

The Eurovision Song Contest is an international song competition, organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and featuring participants representing primarily European countries. Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio, transmitted to national broadcasters via the EBU's Eurovision and Euroradio networks, with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries' songs to determine the winner.

Family man Elias Karo takes four journalist hostage at their newspaper’s headquarters, in a desperate attempt to get them to reveal the wrongdoing wreaked on his family during the 90's recession.

Himmelblå is a Norwegian drama series which aired on NRK1 in Norway, on SVT in Sweden and on RÚV in Iceland. It is based on the British TV drama Two Thousand Acres of Sky written by Timothy Prager and produced by Adrian Bate.

When the employment office is haunted, performance targets troubles and indoor mold threatens, service manager Anneli Tiainen uses peculiar means in the face of an impossible situation.

Police work, boxing and family life in Lapland! Maria Pudas (Saara Kotkaniemi), a former boxing world champion, investigates crimes with her partner Samu Pajala (Karim Rapatti) in Lapland. The life of Maria's cordial and slightly chaotic family (Iina Kuustonen, Eero Saarinen, Katariina Kaitue and Heikki Ranta) changes when Maria's father Esko has a seizure and it is revealed that he has debts of 500,000 euros. In order to save her family, Maria decides to return to the ring once more, and to resolve the situation, only victory matters.

Finnish peace negotiator Ann-Mari Sundell has recently retired from her post as a crisis response adviser in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Suddenly, she is invited by the UN mandate to lead an international conflict resolution process in Turkey. As the peace talks proceed, Ann-Mari has to reconcile with her past before her personal life comes in the way of the whole peace process.

Hobitit is a Finnish live action fantasy television miniseries originally broadcast in 1993 on Yle TV1. Produced by Olof Qvickström, it is based on the events of the books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Strömsö is a Finnish television program which premiered in 2002 on FST and TV1, hosted by Matias Jungar and Susanna Ström-Wilkinson. The show concentrates on various household subjects, such as cooking and gardening. Its fifth season started on January 29, 2006. Since the beginning of 2007 the show is hosted by Lee Esselström and Jocke Lax. The show is made at Strömsö, a villa north of the city of Vaasa. The villa was built in the 1860s and served as the summer residence for a merchant family from Vaasa for about 100 years.

Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (abbreviated UMK) is an annual music contest organised by the Finnish public broadcaster Yle. UMK began in 2012 as a new concept for the Finnish selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, replacing the original Finnish Eurovision Song Contest qualifying event (Suomen euroviisukarsinta) which had been held since 1961.

The life of Aki Honkala, a blindly dedicated Member of the European Parliament, takes a radical turn during one scandal-plagued election night. The fall from grace is no surprise to anyone but himself. The people have spoken, let the chatter go - but what remains of a man who has lived and breathed politics for most of his adult life?

The story of the international refugee crisis, depicting a world where greed, violence and exploitation compete with hopes and dreams amid a constant fight for survival.