Netflix: The Diplomat

[Strollen]

Just finished, the first season Netflix’s: The Diplomat, starring Kerri Russell as the American Ambassador to UK.

It terrific mix of Aaron Sorkin, style dialogue, The Crown’s production values, House of Card plots, with a dose of “The Americans” spy thriller tension added. I suppose it helps if you been in love with Kerri Russell since she was the adorable Felicity, and you think that "The Americans is one of the best TV shows ever. "

The 8 episodes went by way too quickly and the cliff hanger at the end will have you begging for a season 2. (Very likely but no time frame announced.)

Overall quite deserving of its 90% Rotten tomatoes rating.

[Tim_N]

It was enjoyable to watch, but man it lacked all plausibility. It’s a weird show as the premise reads like it’s for a smart audience (e.g. it is about a diplomat ambassador with strengths in negotiations, not someone with executive power or ability for subterfuge like the CIA/NSA/President). But then the plot is like what would be in an ambassador’s wet dream when they start to feel unimportant and irrelevant in this world, not an ambassador’s actual life (whether during extraordinary circumstances or not).

I know you were restricting the comparison to the West Wing and Aaron Sorkin to the dialogue alone, but I was ready to cringe before I read the caveat.

I obviously went into it with the wrong expectations, anyone who doesn’t mind quite a bit of melodrama will enjoy this (as I mentioned I did).

[dgallina]

@Tim_N

it lacked all plausibility.

I thought it was really enjoyable. But yeah, the implausibilities stacked up, and the final reveal on who financed the Russian mercenaries was absolutely absurd.

[Strollen]

@dgallina

I thought it was really enjoyable. But yeah, the implausibilities stacked up, and the final reveal on who financed the Russian mercenaries was absolutely absurd.

In the age of Trump is anything really absurd or implausible?

[Dejin]

I’ve still got one more episode left. But I was very happy to see this.

‘The Diplomat’ Renewed for Season 2 at Netflix

Also shouldn’t this be moved to the TV sub forum?

[Strollen]

@Dejin

Also shouldn’t this be moved to the TV sub forum?

Actually, it probably should be moved to the Netflix show thread

I really tried searching for “The Diplomat” and saw no mention of it, but there are 1/2 dozen posts about the show…
Is this something @tomchick will do?

[jsnell]

@Strollen, you can move this to the right forum yourself without mod action, since you created the thread. There’s an icon of a pencil next to the title of the thread, right at the top. Click on that, and it’ll let you edit the title or change the forum.

Please don’t get this moved into the generic Netflix thread. It is impossible to find discussion of any specific show there. It’s fine for announcements or for things that are not worth discussing. Sounds like this show is.

[Strollen]

Done, that was easy.

[MikeJ]

I’d take that reveal at the end with a giant heaping of salt. It’s just one character’s hypothesis. I think there are some hints as to who actually did it though.

[Dejin]

This is a fun read. Foreign Policy Magazine talked to actual Foreign Service Officers about how accurate the show is. Some high points for accuracy in some areas and some areas not so much.

some current and former officials say, there’s a patina of authenticity that gives The Diplomat more legitimacy than your run-of-the-mill Washington political thriller. For starters, the set includes Drexel furniture, the (in)famous and ubiquitous furniture brand that fills nearly every U.S. government worker’s pre-furnished homes abroad and was instantly recognizable to every FSO I spoke to who watched the show.

The show also shines a spotlight on the ambassador’s number two, the deputy chief of mission. DCMs play crucial behind-the-scenes roles in managing an embassy and serving as a fixer and confidante for the ambassador. “The dynamic between the ambassador and the DCM in the show … it can be pretty realistic because the DCM’s job is really to help the ambassador manage her work and navigate all aspects of the job, big and small,” said Lewis Lukens, a former senior career diplomat who served as the DCM at the U.S. Embassy in London from 2016 to 2019.

But it does veer from accuracy a bit in the interest of making things interesting:

The show gets a lot of small details right, and it gets a lot of big details wrong, but some of that can be forgiven, because in the words of one current senior foreign service officer (FSO), “if it was truly realistic about life as a diplomat, this show could be boring as hell.”

Overall sounds like the show has a lot of fans in the real-life State Department:

The show has drawn something of a cult following within the State Department, maybe because shows and movies on the State Department are so few and far between.

At Long Last, the Foreign Service Gets the Netflix Treatment

[awdougherty]

Really enjoyed this one and it’s interesting to see how it gets a lot of details right according to the Foreign Policy article. A guilty pleasure of mine back in the day was Madame Secretary which was dumb, lightweight fun but never gave you the impression it was concerned with the details deeper than a quick Google search level. Some conversations in The Diplomat felt more detailed and grounded than the entirety of Madame Secretary’s run. Maybe it wasn’t actually, but it felt like a credibility existed to The Diplomat.

Anyway, glad this is coming back for a second season.