Reviews

I confess that I only watched a few minutes of the 1st episode, but Manaj's 'jokes' were so painfully unfunny and lame that I got disgusted and stopped watching, figuring that he should be rolling out 'A' material in the first few minutes of his new show to make a splash. I'm probably being unfair to him, but I tend to be a tough audience for humor -- for example, I seldom watch John Oliver's This Week Tonight because I find that the humor is usually so forced as to be stupid rather than funny. (But what do I know? Oliver keeps getting Emmys over someone who consistently makes me laugh, Stephen Colbert.)

My wife and I felt that the story was pretty good and the acting of the major players was decent -- very restrained and disciplined. Unfortunately, the impact of those positives was seriously undermined because there were so many excessive, not-at-all restrained elements layered on -- over-the-top music, too many villains (especially the last group), too many plot devices where the characters act stupid to advance/extend the story. The bottom line was that we were relieved when it was finally over.

My wife and I recently watched the first 3 episodes on Amazon Prime but were underwhelmed. While we found the premise very intriguing and the story lines promising, the ambassador did not come across as being anywhere near smart or savvy enough to have been appointed to a sensitive ambassadorial position, in Ireland or especially in her previous posting, Lebanon (where her husband died in a car bomb meant for her). We couldn't decide whether the actress playing the ambassador was miscast or the scripts made her seem stupid, but whichever it was we won't be watching any more episodes.