“The Diplomat” is back after an 18-month hiatus. Do you remember that?

I can't wait for the second season of The Diplomat, the smart, fast-paced Netflix political thriller starring Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell, on Thursday.

A drama whose first season is devoted to a plot about the possible outbreak of World War III should be a relaxing break from watching the news in the run-up to Tuesday's presidential election. It might even help lower my heart rate from impending implosion to just extreme anxiety.

The problem is that I can barely remember what's already happened on “The Diplomat,” not because I'm AARP-eligible or because the plot was more complicated than “Tenet” on a caffeine shot. That's because the first season was released in April 2023, a little over a year and a half ago. In terms of politically induced stress, that's a decade for anyone who's been paying attention.

I remember Russell playing a behind-the-scenes career diplomat who is reluctant to become the very public US ambassador to the UK. I can imagine her husband, played by Sewell, who is a former bigwig and is so uncomfortable with being a true first spouse that he interferes, er, helps her, every chance he gets

I remember a rather dashing British Foreign Secretary who has crazy chemistry with Russell's character and that the attack of a British aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf kicks off the plot. There is poisoning, right? Is Iran somehow involved? Russia too? For some reason, I vaguely remember a photo shoot where Russell wore a very cool dress. But I can't tell you how that fits into the bigger picture.

Still, I know that The Diplomat was well-written, extremely suspenseful, and a little outrageous (in a good way) in its foreign policy bombshells. If you can relate to this conundrum, then you are not. Or me. Blame it on the timing problem that exists with some of the best television content these days.

Like so many top shows of the current cable and streaming era, The Diplomat's dense details and twists made it a joy to watch — and almost impossible to keep up with during cable and streaming's typical hiatus between seasons .

The problem came to my attention recently while trying to pick up the threads of FX's “The Old Man,” whose second season just ended after a two-year, two-month break between the first and second season premieres. Suffice it to say, the first few episodes had me thinking things like, “Why is everyone after Jeff Bridges' character again?” “How exactly is Joel Grey's character related to Bridges?” and “Why is Amy Brenneman alive on Grey's.” House when she’s essentially an innocent bystander?”

To add to the confusion, Apple TV+'s brilliant series Severance has begun announcing its long-awaited return on January 17, 2025. This means that she will be back with new episodes almost three years after the first season premiered.

Let me grab my worn-out cardigan and pipe like Seth Meyers does in his “Back in My Day” sketch on NBC’s “Late Night” and remember the way things used to be.

Television wasn't always like this

The old days of television — let's just happen to focus on 1973, the era of “The Waltons,” “Sanford and Son” and “M*A*S*H” — had numerous flaws, but in terms of brain retention, it was one Child's play. Back then, comedies and dramas broadcast on three major networks produced 20 to 25 episodes per season, most of them self-contained and with very few storylines that extended beyond one episode.

From around late May to early September, reruns were the norm, meaning you could actually watch some of your favorite episodes twice and commit them to memory. That's why so many Boomers remember John-Boy Walton's family as well as their own. Just ask me about mom Olivia's polio and how John-Boy found a new treatment that helped her walk again.

Nowadays, lavish series with seasons that are only 6 to 10 episodes last much longer due to their high production standards. One can't expect HBO's “House of the Dragon,” with its design values and special effects, to take as much time to create as a 1970s cult film like “Kung Fu,” which itself was a huge leap forward Images and imagination for a TV western.

It's actually not surprising that the time between seasons can now be 12 months or more. Sometimes the delays are longer and the result of circumstances such as the pandemic lockdown in 2020 or the actors and writers strikes in 2023.

To be fair, my grumblings about “The Old Man,” which weaves a complicated backstory into the main narrative about an ongoing attempt to capture Jeff Bridges' silver-haired former spy, are mostly selfish, considering what Bridges had overcome, to make it to the second season.

As Bridges, 73, told People magazine, he spent five months in the hospital and nearly died while battling COVID-19 while being treated for a cancer that is now in remission. Bridges recovered and was ready for another season of physically demanding fight scenes, making him possibly the baddest Senior Discount qualifier ever.

While I'm grateful to see Bridges play again after such a traumatic journey, as a viewer I needed a little more support to fully enjoy The Old Man's return. Rewatching the entire first season wasn't a practical answer. Who manages to spend so many hours talking about the future of the country on social media? Not me.

A refresher course for viewers

Which brings me to something that I hope can solve TV's time crunch: longer, better summaries.

On October 17, “Severance” executive producer and director Ben Stiller raised this issue in a tweet: “For TV fans… I know it takes a lot to re-watch an entire season of a show getting ready for a new season.”…But as far as recaps go, what shows do you think helped keep an entire season fresh in an entertaining and timely way? Just curious.”

There were some good suggestions among the more than 600 responses, including praise for the summaries of the US “Mr. Robot” and “Slow Horses” from Apple TV+. One commenter linked to a YouTube clip of Jimmi Simpson's six-minute recap of the first season of HBO's “Westworld,” an example of lively, quick recap at its finest — and one example of which earned a thank you from Stiller himself.

Also mentioned was ABC's Lost, which helped viewers keep track of extremely convoluted storylines during its run from 2004 to 2010 by airing several hour-long specials with clips summarizing previous storylines.

Clip episodes are a device that has been used in other series, but in “Lost” they were perfected to follow the twists and turns in the lives of the plane crash survivors stranded on a mysterious island. No expense was spared on the details. This was a summary in its most detailed form. The very first “Lost” clip episode – narrated by Brian Cox and aired in April 2005 near the end of the first season – was rather aptly described by the St. Louis Post Dispatch as “a public service.”

Personally, I support clip episodes for any TV series that has large time gaps between seasons. Of course, they don't have to consist of just clips. There could be interviews with actors, producers and directors woven into the episode, a few bloopers to lighten the mood, an interactive online quiz, live Mystery Science Theater 3000-style commentary on the proceedings, and more more.

For “Severance,” a clip episode that introduces the second season could be designed as a training film, tying into the series' premise that Lumon Industries employees' work memories are separate from their personal lives, and vice versa. The narrator is Mr. Milchick (pictured). by the great Travis Tillman) and begin with Milchick leading a “Music Dance Experience,” the strange, equally spooky and groovy employee extra that's essentially a dance party for two.

Stiller is probably already working on something this inventive. I think he understands. No one has the mental bandwidth to retain the facts of a three-year-old season of a show like Severance in today's troubled world. Consider that in 2022, the year “Severance” became a critical hit, the United States peaked at its millionth death from COVID-19, the Supreme Court threw out Roe vs. Wade, Queen Elizabeth died, the FBI confiscated boxes of secret documents from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, Elon Musk took over as Twitter boss, and Will Smith slapped Chris Rock live on TV during the Oscars and many other major events.

No wonder we are all so exhausted. I'll be joining The Diplomat when it launches with fresh content this week. There is no clip episode planned. But I hope Netflix offers a decent “previous” briefing before inviting viewers to jump back into the fictional battle over foreign policy. To put it diplomatically, it's the least they can do.

Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at [email protected].

“The Dipomatist”

The second season will be released on Netflix on Thursday

Rated TV-MA

“The Diplomat” is back after an 18-month hiatus. Do you remember that?

Television wasn't always like this

A refresher course for viewers

“The Dipomatist”

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