-1 Star. Completely unwatchable

Hoping to find a good show on Netflix these days is a decidedly risky proposition. For every really good show, like The Squid Games, there is another lousy, dreary, derivative, woke loser.

You know, female uber assassin is unfairly thought to be a traitor, and the CIA sends out their own assassins to kill her. Meanwhile, she takes on 20-30 Spetsnaz operators, each weighing 250 pounds, with her bare hands. Thus saving the world and getting a secret medal from the POTUS, (as portrayed by a female actor of color).

I have discovered another type of show that the entertainment industry can dump on an unwitting audience. This the strident, annoying, insufferable streaming show Such is where the new etmtry, “The Diplomat” fits in the gutter of unwatchable shows.

I am a contrarian in my views. Looking at the glowing, 10 star reviews in IMDB, (as I did before trying it out), my hopes were raised sky high on a streaming series that would give me hours of enjoyable viewing.

Instead, I was immediately offended by the constant stream of self important profanities and profundities emitted by the star, Keri Russell. (I like her as an actress, BTW). She thinks she is the ultimate fount of all knowledge on all things diplomatic. Her shouting and yelling start early and seldom relent. She is elevated from her preferred posting as the US ambassador to Afghanistan, as a prelude to being named replacement VP? An obscure diplomat, about to be sent to an unimportant posting, somehow is the next VP? Its beyond plausible. Unrealistically, she does not want to be the Ambo to England or the VP. She thinks she can get the Taliban to let girls back into schools, or some such impossible task. Wow, she’s a saint!

The British foreign secretary, depicted by David Gyasi, and she are shown to be much wiser, smarter, and more insightful than the democratically elected heads of the US and Britain. Capable actors both, they are portrayed as easily fooled ninnies. Michael McKean plays the POTUS, a lightweight chump played like a fiddle by the PM of Britain, Rory Kinnear. They are both such blundering idiots that their near calamitous decisions must be corrected by their underlings. Note, both are White Males.

Our f bomb dropping, know it all heroine Ms. Russell, constantly and irritatingly yells at her superiors in the government (including the President) that they are wrong, she is right about everything, everyone else is stupid, and why the fuck can’t you just agree with me as I offensively project my complete omniscience? They just take the verbal shellacking and eventually, of course, bend to her superior wisdom.

I have left out her husband, who actually seems to know what HE is doing. As portrayed by the terrific Rufus Sewell, he is a loose canon who so pissed off the Sec of State, that all he is allowed to do now is be the wife of the Ambassador. But he apparently had great influence and star power at one point. His wife is tired of his screwing up, yells at him all the time, and wants a divorce. But she can’t, you see, cause she’s on deck for the VP job. For reasons that are unrealistically left mysterious, he refuses to be dumped or cheat on her. Oh, she won’t screw him anymore, either. There is simply no amount of money or attraction that would keep any self respecting man tied to such a frigid, insufferable harpy.

I know, the two people who may read this may violently disagree with me. But for those who think my review may have resonance, I suggest that a watching of Meet the Press would be less annoying than 15 minutes of this woke female diatribe factory.

Lest I be thought to be overly critical of entertainment shows in general, I humbly recommend the following streaming shows on Netflix.