At heart, a soap: the repetitive relationship scenes that go nowhere and only pad screen time. It's The Young and the Restless in the State Department.
2nd: the whole thing is ludicrous. The US ambassador to the UK is freewheeling international diplomacy that might lead to World War III without any instructions from home? Really? Like do you really think that's how this all works? She gives the UK Prime Minister a list of targets to bomb in Russia as a bluff and when he says, "OK, let me pick one out" goes whining to anybody who will listen that she meant it sarcastically? Again: really?
A US diplomat merely told Saddam that we considered their issues with Kuwait a "border dispute" and that we don't get involved in those, exactly as he was instructed from home. That subtle statement changed the history of the Middle East forever. That shows you how carefully every diplomatic statement needs to be parsed.
This world would have ended in nuclear fire decades ago if people like this ambassador had actually been running things, that's for sure.
3rd: the ambassador is a horrible person; her complete disrespect for the people around her, the institutions of both her government and the UK, the norms of it all, and especially, for her husband, are just appalling. The writers think that by making the husband a bit of a cad that her behavior towards him becomes righteous; that's Hollywood at its worst, tone deaf to the fact that nobody deserves the kind of constant psychological abuse that she subjects him and everybody else to, no matter how much you meant to write everybody else as a loathsome idiot.
My main feeling watching it is that the people who are creating this show get away with treating people around them in Hollywood with the same contempt every day, so they think it's completely normal. It's not normal at all. It might be normal in the tv business but it's certainly not normal for diplomats. I mean above all they are diplomats. They are there to be diplomatic, it's right there in the name. They aren't there to be playing James Bond meets Dr. Strangelove meets Nikki from Y&R.
2nd: the whole thing is ludicrous. The US ambassador to the UK is freewheeling international diplomacy that might lead to World War III without any instructions from home? Really? Like do you really think that's how this all works? She gives the UK Prime Minister a list of targets to bomb in Russia as a bluff and when he says, "OK, let me pick one out" goes whining to anybody who will listen that she meant it sarcastically? Again: really?
A US diplomat merely told Saddam that we considered their issues with Kuwait a "border dispute" and that we don't get involved in those, exactly as he was instructed from home. That subtle statement changed the history of the Middle East forever. That shows you how carefully every diplomatic statement needs to be parsed.
This world would have ended in nuclear fire decades ago if people like this ambassador had actually been running things, that's for sure.
3rd: the ambassador is a horrible person; her complete disrespect for the people around her, the institutions of both her government and the UK, the norms of it all, and especially, for her husband, are just appalling. The writers think that by making the husband a bit of a cad that her behavior towards him becomes righteous; that's Hollywood at its worst, tone deaf to the fact that nobody deserves the kind of constant psychological abuse that she subjects him and everybody else to, no matter how much you meant to write everybody else as a loathsome idiot.
My main feeling watching it is that the people who are creating this show get away with treating people around them in Hollywood with the same contempt every day, so they think it's completely normal. It's not normal at all. It might be normal in the tv business but it's certainly not normal for diplomats. I mean above all they are diplomats. They are there to be diplomatic, it's right there in the name. They aren't there to be playing James Bond meets Dr. Strangelove meets Nikki from Y&R.