Alongside its well-publicized drive to dominate original content, Netflix is quietly transforming our television experience in another, perhaps just as profound way. Already this year it has added series from Argentina, Britain, Canada, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Spain and Turkey to its American offerings. The United States may be tightening its borders to other countries’ citizens, but for now, at least, their television shows are flooding in unmolested.

Netflix has a lot of competition in this area. But it has programmed foreign series more aggressively than other general-interest streamers like Amazon and Hulu, and while smaller specialty sites may have larger offerings in Asian soap operas (“DramaFever”) or British dramas (AcornTV), Netflix’s scale gives the shows it acquires a greater potential impact.

Not all of the shows deserve that showcase — a fair share of the Netflix offerings are risible melodrama of interest strictly for variety’s sake, or to homesick expats from the show’s countries of origin. But there are diamonds — or at least, say, tourmalines — to be found. A pair of series added to the service in December without much fanfare, “Fauda” from Israel and “Nobel” from Norway, are both better than and distinctively different from most of the American TV you’re watching at the moment.