The Foreign Service Journal, November 2014

12 NOVEMBER 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL TALKING POINTS Telling the Foreign Service Story on Screen E spionage is described as the “all- but-invisible profession that has shaped history” by the 12-year-old International Spy Museum in Washing- ton, D.C. Diplomacy, in contrast, is done in public view and, most often, on the record. But the U.S. Diplomacy Center has only just broken ground, and, if television viewing is any indication, the American public has no idea what the Foreign Service is all about. A quick Wikipedia search for “espio- nage television series” results in a list of 135 programs from 1965 to the pres- ent. A search for television series about “diplomacy” or “Foreign Service” turns up programs in Canada, Australia and Great Britain. In 2002, the Fox network aired “American Embassy,” a show about a young vice consul at Embassy London, canceling it after only four episodes. The Foreign Service as a profession, it seems, hasn’t captured the imagination of tele- vision writers and producers. That may be changing. A number of television production studios are cur- rently developing programs with Foreign Service members as main characters. Here’s a look at what’s in the various stages of development: Warner Brothers has recently “picked up” (which means the studio liked the pilot and will make it a series) a comedy titled “Embassy,” and has hired writers and producers for it. The show will fea- ture “three unlikely American embassy workers who must prevent an interna- tional war after they inadvertently cause a diplomatic crisis on the tiny South Pacific Island where they’ve been sta- tioned,” notes the Hollywood Reporter . The AMC network has ordered the pilot “White City.” John Dempsey, one of the show’s creators, writers and co-exec- utive producer, is the State Department’s senior advisor to the U.S. Special Repre- sentative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. “White City” will concentrate on Western diplomats and journalists living and working in Afghanistan. The lead character works for an independent policy think-tank and has lived in Kabul for nearly a decade. In the pilot, against the advice of American embassy staffers and others, he tragically overreaches in an attempt to talk with insurgent leaders; in the series, he must find a new role in Kabul. “I thought it’d be fun to show an entertaining and quite colorful story about expat life in Afghanistan during the very surreal post-9/11 era,” Dempsey tells the FSJ . Further along in the development stage is “Stanistan,” a comedy/drama from the USA Network. “Stanistan” fol- lows the staff at the American com- pound in the Middle Eastern country of Stanistan, where State Department staff, covert CIA officers and journalists strike, as the Hollywood Reporter describes, a “delicate balance of danger and silli- ness.” The program is being produced by Universal Cable Productions (a divi- sion of NBC Universal). As of Journal press time, the roles of the State public affairs officer and USAID infrastructure manager have already been cast, as well as the role of the foreign correspondent (and romantic interest). The show began filming at the end of September in New Mexico. No air date has been released yet. CBS’s “Madam Secretary,” star- ring Tea Leoni as the Secretary of State, premiered on Sept. 21. Leoni’s character is a former CIA analyst who has been appointed Secretary of State by her former mentor at the agency, the current President of the United States. In an interview with Variety , cre- ator-executive producer Barbara Hall said the show will focus on the State Department. “We really want to have that pull-back-the-curtain effect with this show, and show you how the State Department actually works,” Hall said. “There’s enough interesting stuff there that people would be surprised to learn.” Somewhat telling perhaps, no techni- cal adviser is listed in the full credits on IMDb (the Internet Movie Database) for “Madam Secretary.” A new PBS documentary is also cur- rently being produced by the Foreign CBS’s “Madam Secretary,” starring Téa Leoni as the Secretary of State Photos from CBS.com