The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem
Netflix | ★★★✩✩

Why can’t Israel have a schlocky soap opera? Even in television, the Jewish state is held to a higher account than every other country. In this instance, the return of The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem on Netflix for its second series.

Although it was reformatted into longer episodes for international screening, it was originally a daily soap opera. Imagine EastEnders at the Western Wall.

Series two kicks off straight after the wedding of the title’s beauty Luna where we last left everyone.

You could probably just jump aboard knowing that Gabriel has an illicit son to add to this business misadventures and that his long-suffering wife has a freedom-fighting/terrorist brother on the run from the British army.

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Swell Ariel Or as Luna (Photo: Netflix)

The action swings back and forth from the end of the Ottoman Empire to independence struggles with the British Mandate, taking in the then frowned on between Sephardim and Ashkenazim.

But even as historical events intervene in the characters’ lives, the more you watch the series the more it dawns that the dramatic is actually melodramatic.

The shifting in time is just adding a terrible grey moustache. The tonal shifts, from torture to family jinks, are unsettling.

It’s got decent production values and clever transitions utilising old stock footage.

And let’s not forget the excellent title sequence and pounding Game of Thrones-style theme tune.

There’s also the presence of heart-throb Michael Aloni as conflicted patriarch Gabriel, sprinkling some of his Shtisel gold dust on proceedings.

But someone had the bright idea of repackaging it into a prestigious Netflix drama, and observed through that prism it no longer holds up. You can’t really dip in and out of this.

You’re either in it for the duration, or you are not.

I’m not, but I am still grateful this drama exists. As a featherweight it’s a knock-out.

Setting a heightened family drama across a heightened historical period is original.

Sure, as a heavyweight among the Sopranos and Wires and Breaking Bads, it’s punch drunk.

But the point is The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem has been put in the wrong weight class.