In 2023, when Netflix dropped the first season of its trans-Atlantic political drama “The Diplomat,” critics immediately spotted the likeness to an earlier, fabled series: “The West Wing.” …
In our household, we watched Season 1 when it launched. It was clever. The similarities with “The West Wing” were obvious, but the substance in plot (engaging but not energizing) and argument (the gender gap is important but not compelling) wasn’t quite up to the heights I recall from viewing all seven seasons of Aaron Sorkin’s creations between 1999 and 2006. For “The Diplomat,” created and largely written by Debora Cahn, we let our Netflix subscription lapse with few regrets about not seeing the second season.
When Season 3 emerged, we were ready to renew our Netflix subscription and watched all three seasons with barely a pause. We soon found that the plot – and substance – thickens. Without wanting to spoil your thrills, let’s consider two aspects of the writing, one of style (ellipses), the other of matters of import (geopolitics).
Ellipses
First, some technical background to this technique: This rhetorical and punctuation device serves two purposes in writing texts. The first, signified by three dots – like this: “…”, often indicates that the speaker – e.g., a character in a work of fiction – has paused, waiting for the thought to form. The second might use the same symbol, but some style guides recommend putting the dots in square brackets: “[…]”. Such ellipses signify that the writer has decided to drop sections of a quoted text to concentrate the logic of an argument. It often involves leaving out clarifying detail or less important premises of a syllogism to connect the grounds of an argument to its claim of truth.
Like TWW, “The Diplomat” uses both to great effect, except that the second takes place in dialogue. …
Keep reading
https://open.substack.com/pub/donnordbergwriting/p/the-diplomat-telling-a-story-through
