MultinationalTeam / Live-Action TV

Danger 5, an action comedy about a team of five assembled to assassinate Hitler and thwart Nazi plans in the 1960s. The five are Jackson (American), Claire (British), Tucker (Australian), Ilsa (Russian), and Pierre ('European').
Defying Gravity had four countries represented among eight shipmates. At least one more country was represented among ground crew.
- Crew: American (Maddux Donner, Paula Morales [Hispanic-American from Texas], Steve Wassenfelder, Ted Shaw), Canadian (Jen Crane, Zoe Barnes), German (Nadia Schilling), Israeli (Evram Mintz). Most of the ground crew is American, although Dr. Claire Dereux is Canadian and Ajay Sharma (who was originally supposed to go on the Antares) is Indian.
Doctor Who: In "The Waters of Mars", Bowie Base One's crew is made up of several Brits and Americans, a German, a Russian, a Pakistani and Mia Bennett (her obituary and a Korean flag on display indicate she's supposed to be Korean-American, but Gemma Chan used her natural English accent, possibly due to the decision regarding Mia's background having come in post-production).
Hogan's Heroes: Colonel Hogan's team is made up of three Americans, an Englishman and a Frenchman — plus Sergeant Schultz, who is not supposed to be an ally but is anyway. The show is notable for averting the Fake Nationality trope for all of the main cast members.
Moonbase 3: The Moonbase 3 personnel are predominantly British but there are scientists from other European countries such as France, Italy, Spain and Germany.
Power Rangers, at least in its earlier seasons. The episode "A Season to Remember" features a plot in which the villains tried to use their ethnic diversity against them by sparking a fierce Christmas/Kwaanza/Hanukkah rivalry. This episode, incidentally, pointed out the fact there were no Jewish Rangers until Power Rangers S.P.D., where Bridge is Jewish. The Jewish character in that Zeo episode was their geeky ally. It's weird when you consider that Haim Saban and Shuki Levy, who created the franchise, are both Israeli...
- Well it is a kind of Multinational Team but most rangers have had American accents,rather than a clean one from Japan,one from America,one from Egypt...
- A true Multinational Team is Power Rangers Operation Overdrive.
- More jarring (given Saban and Levy's Jewish roots) is Power Rangers Time Force. Suffice it to say, a eugenic utopia is not a common source of heroes in works by Jews.
Sense8: Justified by the global nature of sensate clusters (psychically connected people around the world who were born at the same time). The main characters are an eight-person cluster comprised of two Americans, an Icelander, a Mexican, an Indian, a Kenyan, a German, and a Korean.
Spartacus: Blood and Sand: The rebel forces are made up of former slaves from a multitude of backgrounds such as Thracian, Celtic in general, Gaul in particular, Germanic, Assyrian, Numidian, Hispanic, Phoenecian and even Roman exiles.
Stargate Atlantis: The Atlantis expedition is an international team with members from a large variety of countries. You can have a bit of fun spotting the flags on the base uniforms too. Regulars have included a number of Americans, a Canadian (Rodney McKay), a Scot (Carson Beckett — no, I don't know why he has the Saltire on there when Scotland is not an independent state) and a Czech (Radek Zelenka). Extras have included South Africans, Russians, Chinese and a Belgian. And Rodney fangirl Miko Kusanagi is Japanese. Unfortunately, the only Australian was also imaginary.
Pioneered, and possibly created, by Star Trek: The Original Series, where the main characters were Kirk (white American from Iowa), McCoy (white American from Georgia), Spock (Vulcan, with his mother coming from an unspecified Earth country), Uhura (Kenyan), Sulu (Japanese American from California), Chekhov (Russian) and Scotty (Scottish). Expanded later in the franchise, as even more characters representing other species were included. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, for example, there was a Frenchman (Picard), a few Americans (Riker, Crusher), a Somalian (La Forge), a Belarussian-by-adoption (Worf, who, as a Klingon, obviously represents a whole other "nation" as well), and an Irishman (O'Brien). Deep Space Nine had an American (Sisko), the Belarussian-by-adoption (Worf), the Irishman (O'Brien) and somebody clearly of a multi-ethnic background (Bashir). Voyager wasn't as diverse but tried to make up for it with more aliens, and while none of the major human characters were from outside the US, Harry Kim was Korean-American and the half-Klingon B'Elanna Torres had a Latino human father. Enterprise had a few Americans (Archer and Trip), an Englishman (Reed) and a Japanese (Sato).
The Strain (2014): The series had this on both sides of the human/Strigoi conflict. The human side had folks from the United States (Ephraim Goodweather, "Gus" Elizalde), Argentina (Nora Martinez), Romania (Abraham Setrakian), the Ukraine (Vasily Fet), the United Kingdom ("Dutch" Velders), and Mexico (Angel Guzman Hurtado). The Stigoi side has Americans Gabriel Bolivar, Eldritch Palmer, Kelly Goodweather, and Zach Goodweather, along with German Thomas Eichhorst. (It's questionable if nationality even applies to The Master and Mr Quinlan, though the former has a Polish host at the start of the series, and Quinlan was born during Ancient Rome and even became a Roman citizen himself.)
The Four Amigas from Sydney to the Max consist of biracial Sydney, Jewish Olive, half-Latina Emmy, and American Sophia.
Battle Fever J, the third Super Sentai show had a strange variation of this idea where the members except for Miss America (i.e. Battle Japan, Battle Cossack, Battle Kenya and Battle France) were "from" nations around the world, but since they were played by Japanese actors, they were Japanese who had been sent to Russia or France to be trained in combat and in acquiring tastes for caviar and escargo. The first Miss America was the only exception since she was played by a Japanese-American woman. The peculiarities of this series have something to do with the leftovers of the original idea to make the show "Captain Japan", a Japanese interpretation of Captain America under license from Marvel Comics.
- A few other sentai seasons have a Chinese character or a Japanese-American character.
The hosts of Top Gear became one of these after the firing of Jeremy Clarkson and the resulting resignations of Richard Hammond and James May. The new cast featured three Englishmen (Chris Evans, Chris Harris, and Rory Reid), an American (Matt LeBlanc), a German (Sabine Schmidt), and an Irishman (Eddie Jordan).
UFO (1970): SHADO is a multinational alien-fighting organisation based in England, but commanded by an American (e.g., a British Series aiming for a US market). Other characters are Australian, Eastern European, Indian and Afro-Caribbean. A lampshading of this is the food dispenser on Moonbase, with sections marked "American Meal", "Russian Meal" and so on.
The Umbrella Academy: The main characters were adopted and raised in the United States, but were born in different countries from around the world:
- Luther: Stockholm, Sweden.
- Diego: Mexico.
- Allison: Cape Town, South Africa.
- Klaus: Pennsylvania, United States.
- Five: Dublin, Ireland.
- Ben: Seoul, South Korea.
- Viktor: Moscow, Russia.
- Lila: London, England.

Live-Action TV

1 Following

Previous

Index

Next

Multinational Team / Live-Action TV 1 Following

Previous

Index

Next

Live-Action TV

1 Following