Netflix's The Diplomat gives us The West Wing fans a dream reunion – and a very comforting realisation
The Diplomat recalls the glory days of The West Wing, with two familiar faces stealing the show.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
In a previous life, I’d crawl home from a nightshift pressing buttons in BBC Presentation and crawl into bed at 7am. To help fall asleep when most of the world was getting up, I’d pop on a random episode of The West Wing. Then, as CJ, Josh, Sam and Toby traded whip-smart barbs, expounded on intricate foreign policy and went about preserving world peace, I could nod off, safe in the knowledge that there were familiar, funny, well-meaning grown-ups in the room.
It’s been almost 20 years since the curtain came down on that show. In that time, I, like millions of other fans – Wingnuts is our official term – have watched hundreds of hours of characters walking ’n’ talking, shaking off security detail, cutting secret deals in corridors and clinking glasses at power dinners.
The last ten months alone have seen Black Doves’ mercenaries tripping up the government, Hostage’s PM choosing between her country and her kidnapped husband, and Paradise’s Secret Service agent Xavier framed for his president’s demise. If nobody in all that time has matched Aaron Sorkin’s masterpiece for wit and worldliness, it’s not been for want of trying.
When The Diplomat was first announced, I feared a Disneyfied version of the US ambassador to London skipping down the stairs of her big Regent’s Park house, getting loads of English things wrong – “cups with saucers?” – before charming the UK government with her winning ways. And, sure enough, there is a touch of the Bridget Jones about Keri Russell’s Kate Wyler, with her bush-dragged hair, struggle to do up her own frock and will-they-undoubtedly-they-will frisson with the British foreign secretary.
What saves this from being “The Princess Diaries does politics”? Several aspects, not least the chemistry and competition between Russell and Rufus Sewell as the ambassador and her husband. She’s got the London gig, but he’s a former diplomatic hotshot with a still-spinning Rolodex. When the couple aren’t fighting or breaking the china in their beautiful residence (no Netflix money spared on locations), they’re collaborating to outwit their staff, the CIA, politicians back home and the UK PM – a delightfully brittle Rory Kinnear, with most of the best lines.
Of course, it’s not remotely true to life – how many top-level meetings, from CIA to Russian assets, can one ceremonial ambassador possibly be invited to sit in on? – and that’s before season two sees the arrival of Allison Janney as the vice-president Grace Penn. Never mind suspending our disbelief, any sleepy Wingnut will just want to shout, “It’s CJ Cregg,” even if her military stature and unblinking gaze give off vibes more akin to Donald Sutherland than Jed Bartlet’s ballsy, brilliant press secretary.
My small complaint would be that, with such a formidable role, we don’t get to enjoy Janney’s funny bones, but with a great script, personal dynamics and corridors-of-power vibes, what more could we ask for? The answer: another West Wing alumnus: white-haired and bearded but still, unmistakably, Bradley Whitford – or, as he introduces himself, “Todd Penn, First Lady.”
For sure, Wingnuts might have to watch through their fingers when the Penns curl up together (CJ and Josh feels very wrong), but I suppose it’s no weirder than the VP’s wife being simultaneously an ambassador, and it’s also strangely comforting to see two such familiar figures arguing over oysters like it’s 2002. Now if they can just recruit Richard Schiff, Janel Maloney and – whisper it – Martin Sheen, we could all sleep easy. On screen at least, the grown-ups are back in the room.
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