If The Diplomat were a paint colour it would be magnolia. If it were an ice cream it would be supermarket own-brand vanilla. Crisps? Ready Salted. Prime Minister? John Major. You get the drift.
Let's start with the characters. Not a single one of them was interesting in any shape or form. From the 'mysterious' restaurant owner to the British/Catalan 'streetwise' assistant - they was no spark to engender any kind of empathy, no emotion or drama in any of the dialogue, no jeopardy, no intrigue, no cliffhangers.
The tired 'female protagonists doing it for themselves against the slightly old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud Consul General' trope is painted in 50ft high neon letters all around and just makes you think the writers cobbled it together during siesta.
It's pretty but banal. Paint-by-numbers telly. The kind of thing that belongs on BBC just after the lunchtime news.
You'd like to think Sophie Rundle (the only actor with any real clout) only did this due to some contractual obligation like Edward Norton in The Italian Job remake but maybe it was the lure of working in Barcelona. It certainly wasn't the script.
Let's start with the characters. Not a single one of them was interesting in any shape or form. From the 'mysterious' restaurant owner to the British/Catalan 'streetwise' assistant - they was no spark to engender any kind of empathy, no emotion or drama in any of the dialogue, no jeopardy, no intrigue, no cliffhangers.
The tired 'female protagonists doing it for themselves against the slightly old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud Consul General' trope is painted in 50ft high neon letters all around and just makes you think the writers cobbled it together during siesta.
It's pretty but banal. Paint-by-numbers telly. The kind of thing that belongs on BBC just after the lunchtime news.
You'd like to think Sophie Rundle (the only actor with any real clout) only did this due to some contractual obligation like Edward Norton in The Italian Job remake but maybe it was the lure of working in Barcelona. It certainly wasn't the script.