Trailer for HBO’s Beforeigners brings Viking warriors to the present-day

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

In the not-too-distant future, a strange phenomenon all over the world brings people from three time periods (the Stone Age, the Viking Age, and the late 1800s) into the present day. That's pretty much all you need to know about Beforeigners, a six-part HBO series created by Anne Bjørnstad & Eilif Skodvin, who brought us Lilyhammer, Netflix's very first series. A few years after the phenomenon, Viking shield-maiden Alfhildr (Krista Kosonen) has become a police officer, the first with a "multi-temporal background," and is partnered with burned-out officer Lars Haaland (Nicolai Cleve Broch) to investigate the murder of a woman with Stone Age tattoos.

While speaking with Variety, Beforeigners co-creator Anne Bjørnstad said that the series is an allegory of the refugee crisis and migration issues, and they've even made it a point for the Beforeigners to have their own language. "We knew before casting that the language was important and that was a key element even in the casting process," Bjørnstad said. "Old Norse is very well documented in the sagas, we know how the language was, but we do not know how it was pronounced. Therefore early on, I contacted researchers, professors who helped us. We also constructed the language that stone-age people spoke, and even with the language from the 19th century: We worked on it to make it sound right."

The official synopsis for Beforeigners:

A new phenomenon starts happening all over the world. Powerful flashes of light occur in the ocean, and people from the past appear from three time periods; the stone age, the Viking age, and the late 1800s. No one understands how this is possible, and the people from the past, called 'beforeigners,' have no memory of what’s transpired. A couple of years later, Alfhildr (Krista Kosonen) – who comes from the Viking Age – is teamed up with burned-out police officer Lars Haaland (Nicolai Cleve Broch) as part of the police department’s integration program. While investigating the murder of a woman with Stone Age tattoos, Lars and Alfhildr make unexpected discoveries.

Beforeigners actually debuted last August as HBO Europe's first Norwegian-language series, but it's now streaming on HBO Go and HBO Now.