Some places are off limits, accessible only through fiction, with certain locations sparking curiosity or even desire: the room where a heist is planned, or the laboratory where a secret weapon is developed. And then there are those spaces and moments that seem, from the outside, so dull that it would be folly to try to craft a story around them – like the lounges of grand hotels or convention centers where international agreements are negotiated.

Against all odds, Jean-Stéphane Bron – a Swiss filmmaker known for his focus on documentary cinema (his acclaimed Cleveland Versus Wall Street from 2010 offered a real-time dissection of the subprime crisis) – has taken on this diplomatic terrain and turned it into a gripping series. It's the kind that expertly builds tension and creates a seemingly unbreakable bond (for the duration of six episodes) between characters and viewers.

By a quirk of television fate, Bron's TV series The Deal premiered online the same day as the third season of The Diplomat, the international melodrama on Netflix. The contrast is striking: The American series borrows elements from reality to stage a spectacle calculated to maximize immediate viewer enjoyment, while The Deal wisely uses the tools of fiction to lay bare the machinery of international relations.

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