I started the Diplomat on Netflix.
I'm a bit of Keri Russell dude. I really really liked The Americans, and this had a bit of that feel.
I'm typically not much for political thrillers, but this one hooked me. I was all in on almost all the characters. There wasn't much that fell flat. The UK PM kind of did, but they pulled him back in a bit.
I might be off base, but they did a really nice job of presenting high level operators processing quickly. It's one thing to say, this character is a good foreign policy mind. It's quite another to actually make it feel organic. It was really good.
Moreover, they didn't hamfist shit together. Some of the timeframes feel unnecessarily constrained, but nothing feels dumb or forced.
Big thing is the characters are all compelling. And maybe more impressive, is both sides of every argument made at least some sense, even if it goes against the narrative of the protagonist. They did a really good job with all the characters. And they also did a nice job of not trying to tie these dudes to caricatures of real political figures. The president is kind of supposed to be a Biden type, but they changed a lot, but still made him an interesting and compelling character. The UK PM is supposed to be a bit of a Boris Johnson type, but they did a good job of separating the character from the public person.
It was really good IMO.
And I'm still a Keri Russell guy... It's worth a click.
https://imgur.com/zUkmYo0