Politics are boring until you add world leaders conspiring to assassinate whistleblowers, extortion attempts, and regular people who had their memories of being spies wiped from their minds. The political drama TV genre has produced some of the shows we still discuss today, including Netflix’s
The Diplomat. After eight tense episodes of reluctant U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) balancing a failing marriage with failing diplomacy in the wake of an attack on a British warship, it’s completely understandable if you have a thirst for bureaucratic chaos like The Diplomat. Lucky for you, The Diplomat comes from a long line of governmental clusterfucks, clandestine cover-ups, and deadly espionage put on TV.
Its streaming home has been on a political drama streak with The Recruit and The Night Agent being two of its biggest shows of in 2023. But, what’s not to love about The Recruit featuring a CIA lawyer caught in a sexy web of deceit by a manipulative asset, and The Night Agent centering on a glorified phone operator forced into protecting an unsuspecting assassination target from threats both foreign and domestic? The Diplomat also isn’t Russell’s first time she stuck her nose into international affairs, as she was a Russian spy disguised as a suburban American housewife who could book you a trip with her travel agency as easily as she could slit your throat on The Americans. And this isn’t even half of it.
There are terrorist-loving CIA agents, secret father-daughter relationships between an FBI agent and the FBI’s most wanted criminal, and the best publicists a president could ask for during a crisis. These are top ten shows like The Diplomat you need to stream now.
