In the Keep of Time by Margaret J. Anderson

At the same time, Hal, along with Kate’s fiercely competent deputy, Stuart (Ato Essandoh), is tasked with turning the combative Kate into a more refined diplomat, an arduous process with echoes of “My Fair Lady” and “Kiss Me, Kate.” So one pole of the plot is their highly cultivated Bickersons act, a will-they-or-won’t-they screwball anti-romance between an unforgiving woman and a roguish, egomaniacal man you may see ghostly images of Carole Lombard and John Barrymore. But thanks to an improbable, possibly MacGuffinish twist, it is mandatory that they stay together. Kate and Hal’s union is on its last legs, as it turns out. For them, artifice is an essential element in both statecraft and marriage.

She arrives in London with her trailing spouse, Hal (Rufus Sewell), a more experienced and renowned diplomat who is now expected to smile for the cameras but otherwise keep his mouth shut. Russell plays Kate Wyler, a career American diplomat suddenly and surprisingly named ambassador to Britain. (The serial twists and breathless explanations both contribute to and help to obscure the plot-greasing implausibilities necessary for a show that puts earthshaking events in a comic framework.) Geopolitical crises and amorous complications are thick on the ground, intertwining and constantly morphing in ways that can be hard to follow. So you would be right about complicated, at least. Debora Cahn most recently served as an executive producer and writer on “Homeland.” Keri Russell most famously played a hyper-efficient assassin on “The Americans.” Their collaboration in the new Netflix series “The Diplomat” - Cahn created it, Russell stars - would lead you to expect something dark, violent and complicated.īut a look further back in Cahn’s history shows that she started her career with a long run as a writer and producer on “The West Wing.” And that’s the spirit she’s brought to “The Diplomat,” a political thriller laced with romance and written, with some success, in an Aaron Sorkinesque high-comic, high-velocity style.

In the Keep of Time by Margaret J. Anderson