Behind every great woman there is a manservant. Or there should be.

The ideal relationship isn’t necessarily with a lover, child, friend or parent. The most idyllic of all can be the harmonic complicity of boss and loyal aide, the adviser who knows better and solves everything.

It’s true for men, too, of course. Before Ask Jeeves became a search engine (now known as Ask.com), it was a reference to one of the greatest English love stories of all time, that of Bertie Wooster and his valet, Jeeves.

A reason “Downton Abbey,” a Masterpiece drama about masters and servants, was such a huge hit in the United States is that it appealed as an old-world version of “The West Wing” — instead of electoral politics and all the president’s aides, “Downton Abbey” romanticized patrilineal power and the weird upstairs-downstairs bonds built into the British class system.

“Borgen” is in that league, even though it is a political drama set in, of all places, the Danish Parliament. The same Danish team behind the original version of “The Killing” created “Borgen,” and it too focuses on a strong woman, only this time she leads not a homicide investigation, but an entire country.