Ambassadors (2013)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

A lot of fun.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is a very fine TV show. If it weren't for fools who admire shows based on daily hospital routines and cops with boring lives that investigate repetitive murders; then unique and rare brilliance such as this would exist in today's TV show listings.However, boring people are the majority of judges in ratings; therefore they rate those boring shows and inspire them to make at least a dozen series within their lifespan.Unfortunate excellence such as Ambassadors, Kingpin, Hung, The Honorable Woman, and many more don't get a chance to cause greater impression in following series than they already had in their first season showing.

I have never been tempted to write a review before, but was roused into action when I heard that this series only had three episodes and there are no plans for any more.I think this is the best comedy I have seen since Episodes. There were many times when I laughed out loud. Each week my girlfriend and I eagerly looked forward to the next installmentThis was intelligently written and very funny. It centres around the ambassador and his right-hand man, the ambassador's wife and a small group of staff at embassy. It comes across a quintessentially British bumbling around in a foreign country trying to grasp a strange culture. As someone well travelled, I would normally hate that approach but credit to the excellent writing. This kept me entertained with mild plots and lots of laugher.I will be recommending this to all my friends especially ex-pats that are always looking for gems of British TV and British comedy.

As a former member of the British Diplomatic Service I found this series ticked a lot of boxes. I recognised a number of the characterisations as being similar to people I had come across in my own career, and the balance of realistic scenarios and humour was cleverly done. I found myself empathising with several of the characters in the Embassy who struggled to maintain a semblance of normal life amid conflicting, usually urgent and sometimes dangerous, calls on their time. Reviewer journalist1 clearly has a different interpretation of "politically correct" than me. The programme deliberately poked fun at institutions and individuals, from the British Royal Family to the ruling clique of the semi-fictitious country where it is set. Of course there were errors - the Union Jack regularly being flown upside down, for example, something that the producers should really have got right - and it had to be a bit "over-the-top" to be funny, but overall it was an amusing but realistic peek into the world of modern diplomacy at the day-to-day level. I hope there will be another series.

Yet another typical wishy washy BBC fiasco dolled up as entertainment. You just know its a BBC product when they disparage the royal family and mention the Guardian within the first three minutes of the show. Regarding the royal family, I am sure over at the BBC they think that somehow its 'edgy' and 'real' to knock the head of state's family and that may have been so TWENTY years ago, however, today it just looks dated and another BBC attempt to talk down the country who's people pay their over- priced bills. The comedy fails on every level, the actors seem to have no love for the series or their parts and boy does it show, the viewer gets the strong impression the cast have no faith in what they are doing while the expression on their faces is one of abject misery, they just don't seem to want to be there, that they the cast all have better things to do , that they deserve FAR better parts but for some reason no-one else recognises their incredible comedic qualities, the dialogue is stilted, weak and forced, as for the writing, it is so unfunny as to beggar description. Look, this is meant to be a COMEDY yet there is absolutely NOTHING funny about the show whatsoever unless you are a left-wing Guardian- reading Labour voter of 20 years ago and even then that's a real maybe.The problem with BBC comedy these days is that they are so busy ticking all the politically-correct boxes they fail to realise that any humour a show did have has long since disappeared.If viewers want to see REAL comedy check out VEEP as an example of what is funny because Ambassadors isn't nothing of the sort and the fact that the BBC keeps trying to sell us the licence-fee payer counterfeit goods reflects that unless they really up their game their day is done.