'Embassy' sweet
Review
By KEN PARISH PERKINS
Star-Telegram TV Critic

Sept. 11 has touched nearly every aspect of American life, so it's no stark revelation that it has altered the way television series are made and marketed. The American Embassy, the thoroughly charming new Fox series, is a classic example of ambiguous post-9/11 sensibilities at work.

Before terrorists crashed commercial planes into the World Trade Center and changed the rules of how viewers digest their fantasy TV, American Embassy was a snappy dramedy called Emma Brody, and it focused solely on the life of a smart but personally unhinged vice consul trying to navigate new surroundings at the U.S. Embassy in London.

The series was, in some ways, cleverly manufactured to fit nicely into the Monday-night slot occupied by the fading Ally McBeal. Like Ally, the lead is a bright, single, romantically challenged professional woman clad in nice suits and filled with messy, confused emotions.

But as the series premieres tonight, it is more of a drama with the kind of hop-out-of-your-seat patriotic idealism we've come to love and loathe on shows such as JAG and The West Wing. Instead of focusing on Emma's deep-seated egocentrism, The American Embassy will be just what the title suggest _ dramatized adventures inside the government office that's a life raft for Americans abroad.

The show's creators say this is the right thing to do _ hey, if the current "Go America!" attitude can expand the audience of a drab military drama like JAG, why shouldn't it work here? Or so the rationale goes. But they also say the change _ or, rather, "expansion" _ is less an opportunity to capitalize on patriotic sentiment than "simply doing the right thing creatively."

That might very well be so, but what worries me is that the delightful, oh-so-personal pilot and the spunk of lead Arija Bareikis will be buried under weightier, issue-oriented story lines, stripping American Embassy of its energetic fearlessness and personal touch.

But I'll be optimistic for now, and, since I have yet to see anything beyond tonight's episode, fair-minded. The pilot of American Embassy has the zing, in both writing and feel, of the pre-nutty Ally McBeal. It almost defies categorization _ it seems too funny and airy to be a drama and too dramatic to be a flat-out comedy.

We're introduced to Emma (Bareikis) while she's in the States through her ongoing narration that, once she moves to London, is presented through letters to her sister, Jules. Sometimes words and phrases float across the screen for emphasis, but the device not nearly as intrusive as it sounds. We learn in the first few moments that her boyfriend is a cheat, her mother is suffocating her and she basically just wants to get the heck out of Dodge.

She doesn't get off to a great start, however. During her flight to London, Emma meets Doug Roach (David Cubitt), a dashing CIA operative, and ends up in a wild, sweaty groping session in the airplane restroom. (Considering the size of those things, it's quite an acrobatic feat.)

The interlude prompts Emma to observe: "And there it was in the first 11 hours. Temptation, humiliation and self-doubt. The Holy Trinity of personal loathing."

The episode drifts between Emma's romantic inclinations (the cute CIA dude is still around, and she's also being mysteriously pursued by a engaged British lord who is rich `and' cute) and a litany of petty assignments. The biggest assignment deals with a naked man sitting in the lobby of the embassy. He ends up explaining more about Emma than Emma does.

Emma also must deal with a teen-age girl stuck in the middle of a custody fight with her parents. Emma volunteers to take the girl in until her mother comes from overseas to fetch her, but the assignment turns out to have some twists of its own.

Inside the embassy, we are introduced to Emma's boss, Elque (Jonathan Adams), a smart, fast-talking consul general; Janet (Helen Carey), the impressive deputy chief of missions who runs the embassy; and Liz (Reiko Aylesworth), Emma's flatmate. Emma also becomes close friends with her next-door neighbor, Gary (Michael Cerveris), a cross-dressing man of many witticisms.

Because the show is broadening its scope, I hope this courtesy will extend to the roles assigned its people of color. All the staffers are considered intellectual overachievers, but vice consul Carmen (Davenia McFadden) is the stereotypical sassy black woman (she's even listed in the press materials as "supportive, always joking"); Emma's roomy, Liz, is the hot and saucy Latina (we first meet her while she's trying to get her groove on with a serviceman for the second straight night); and even Emma's black male boss _ and this might be picky, I know _ constantly tosses around a football.

Still, it's easy to see the charm of The American Embassy and hope for the best. Emma is complicated, ambitious, nervy and vulnerable. Bareikis, a film and stage actress who recently turned in a memorable performance on HBO's Oz, gives a sharp snap to Emma's dampest speeches and moods. In fact, her expressive face is rather extraordinary. You can tell exactly what she's thinking without her opening her mouth.

This merely adds veracity to her muddled, perplexed emotional state, and helps with the series' overriding purpose, which I can only hope will keep Bareikis and her life at the embassy front-and-center and engagingly personal.

Ken Parish Perkins

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