Done With ‘The Diplomat’? Watch These 10 Shows Next.
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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.
The Blacklist (2013)
No one on television over the last decade has outsmarted the U.S. government while simultaneously stopping terrorist attacks he somehow always benefits from, like Raymond Reddington (James Spader) on NBC's The Blacklist. He's the most wanted criminal by the same FBI agency secretly employing him to give up his network of criminals they never knew existed. But, similar to The Diplomat, the political dysfunction becomes merely a backdrop to Reddington's personal connection to Elizabeth Keen, the FBI agent he requests to be his handler and who may or may not be his daughter. There are spy boyfriends implanted in people's lives, childhood memories ripped from the subconscious by glorified hypnotists, and doppelgangers all while the world is under constant attack from criminals they'll never know about.
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The Night Agent (2023)
As The Diplomat proved, international conflict can't stop a little mutually assured destructive romance. And The Night Agent keeps that tradition alive and more. After a train explosion and assassination attempt take low-level FBI agent Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) from manning one phone in the White House's basement to protecting Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan), they both find out that Rose's secret agent family members and Peter's disgraced father were targets of the same U.S. government they're trusting with their lives. The action is crazier than anything on The Diplomat, but allegiances shifting mid-conversations and saving lives being an aphrodisiac is very similar between the two shows.
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The Americans (2013)
Before she was searching for diplomatic solutions between the U.K., the United States of America, and Russia in The Diplomat, Keri Russell was a Russian sleeper cell in FX's fantastic Cold War spy drama The Americans. If you loved how Kate in The Diplomat juggled a failing marriage and any semblance of a social life with an onslaught of direly consequential responsibilities, you'd love her as Elizabeth Jennings in The Americans doing the same, but with more sex and murder. Actually, The Americans is a great follow-up to The Diplomat if you ever thought what Kate would do if she needed to kill someone and still get her kids ready for school in the morning.
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Rabbit Hole (2023)
Kiefer Sutherland has been fighting terrorists and secret evil organizations on TV for so long it almost feels as if he's contractually obligated to take down at least one government per show. In Rabbit Hole, Sutherland is a veteran corporate spy named John Weir forced to delay his retirement in order to clear his name after an ominous consortium of bad people frame him for murder. The Diplomat had Kate and her political posse working around the clock to find out who blew up a British warship, and John has to employ every trick and friend he has to find out who committed the murder he's been accused of committing. There's nothing like a whodunit sprinkled on top of a political drama where you never know who's really who they appear to be.
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Homeland (2011)
Kate figuring out how to stop World War III with a clear head and a little seduction on The Diplomat is child's play compared to what Claire Danes subjected herself to as CIA agent Carrie Mathison in Homeland. In just a few seasons, Carrie uncovers a captured U.S. Marine recruited by the terrorist group al-Qaeda, falls in love with him, and has to put her job and sanity on the line to clear his name after CIA headquarters is bombed. The tension baked into every minute scene of Homeland could induce panic attacks. But it's worth it to see a badass woman put egotistical men in their place like Kate in The Diplomat.
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The Recruit (2022)
Netflix's The Recruit captures the same frenetic energy of someone forced to figure it out after being thrown to the wolves that anchor The Diplomat. In the show, Owen Hendricks (Noah Centineo) is a fresh-faced CIA lawyer who is new on the job yet finds himself ensnared in an extortion plot from a former CIA asset threatening to expose the agency if she isn't freed from prison. Not only does he complicate matters by having wall-busting hotel sex with the asset, he also lives with his ex-girlfriend, who he legally can't open up to fully in the interest of national security. The entire show is a multitude of messy, and that's why it's hard to resist.
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House of Cards (2013)
Rigging a presidential election, killing a mistress, and urinating on his father's grave are regular days in the life of the political buzzsaw known as Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) on Netflix's House of Cards. The gulf between Frank's depravity and that of anyone on The Diplomat is the size of the Atlantic Ocean, but the dysfunction inside the government isn't too dissimilar. The way The Diplomat had you scratching your head at the preposterous political protocols (visible panty lines really matter that much?), House of Cards will show you the dark side behind it all.
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The West Wing (1999)
The godfather of the 21st-century political drama is still one of the most authentic depictions of the White House machinations that run the U.S. government. Martin Sheen could've run for the actual U.S. presidency after his riveting depiction of President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet, where he once vehemently questioned his faith in God after losing a longtime friend and secretary in one of the greatest scenes in any political TV drama.
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Scandal (2012)
The Diplomat dips its toe into the soap opera waters with its implied polyamorous relationship between two major political figures, but Scandal dunks the viewers' heads into it. The show that made Kerry Washington a household name as the political fixer Olivia Pope had her kidnapped by her own father, had her mother kept away by her father, and had her in a torrid affair with the President of The United States. Going through all of this while simultaneously saving world leaders from extortion attempts and shielding the President with the art of press manipulation would make The Diplomat look like a documentary.
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CItadel (2023)
Amazon's $300 million spy thriller ventures a bit more into the science fiction realm with two spies who had their memories wiped and are reconnecting to stop a conspiratorial group threatening a new world order. Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas are sensational as Mason Kane and Nadia Sinh, respectively, two ordinary people thrust into a fight to save the world from a sinister cabal, similar to how Kate is taken from life's routine to let people know how to do their jobs to stave off an international conflict.
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