Some quibbles about The Night Manager - but it is entertaining

The Night Manager continued to hold our rapt attention right through to the end, not so much because we liked any of the "good guys" (well, we did like the British agent, Angela) as we loathed the "bad guys," especially Hugh Laurie's Dickie Roper. The plot throughout is taut and tense, with a lot of surprise twists - hats off to le Carre there - but ultimately, as w/ many other works in the spy genre and le Carre's in particular, at the end you just say: Really? Is anything about this story line probable or even possible? We see the most elaborate scheming across international borders with embedded agents - an amateur agent no less - surviving all sorts o misfortunes and betrayals. Isn't there an easier way to stop this illegal arms sale and delivery? And for that matter. why would a guy as shrewd and devious as Roper not realize from the get-go that something's amiss about the protagonist, John Pine - that he's got to be a spy for someone? Why would he entrust this near-stranger w/ a $3000-million illegal arms deal? Also, to put it kindly the romantic subplot is not le Carre's forte, and in this series in particular we can't buy for a second Pine's attachment to the statuesque bubblehead, Jed. Putting these quibbles, and maybe they're more than quibbles, aside, though, the series is entertaining over the course of its 6 episodes, which is much more than I can say for most of what's out there, so it may be worth your time.

Why The Night Manager is fun though kind of ridiculous, too

The first three (of six) episodes of The Night Manager, adapted from le Carre's novel, have a nice pace, a lot of action, some smart dialogue, some delightfully menacing characters, some international intrigue, some frightening sequences, and some extraordinary scenery (supposedly Egypt and Mallorca, not sure where these scenes were actually filmed), in other words, it's le Carre's world. The series has held our interest so far, though it does suffer the flaws that are characteristic, at least to me, of le Carre's work: needless complication that serves no logical purpose other than prolonging and accelerating the action. (Friend AW, a huge le Carre fan, argues that the book is far better than the miniseries, in part because there is full explanation regarding the bewildering complexities of the plot.) To give an example: the main character, Pine, under and assumed name and in partnership with the British secret service, insinuates himself into the inner workings of a corrupt arms dealer (Roper). Pine does so largely because, when he was the "night manager" in a lavish hotel in Egypt he was informed about Roper's corruption and tried to blow the whistle - but Roper was tipped off (it seems pretty obvious to us who tipped him off, but none of the characters seems to have figured that out) leading to the death of an Egyptian beauty w/ whom Pine has a one-night fling. OK, so how is it possible that Roper will not figure out that Pine was the whistle-blower in Egypt a few years back? To cover the tracks the British invent the most elaborate ruse, in which Pine (under another name) poses as the toughest guy in all of Devon (I'm not kidding), then shows up in time to "rescue"Roper's son in a staged kidnapping, and so on. As w/ far too many spy (or crime) dramas involving a sting, it's needlessly complex, a ridiculous plan in which so much could go wrong, but convenient for the plot. No matter - a movie (unlike a novel) carries us forward at its own pace, and we don't have time or inclination to question the veracity - until later.:Fun while watching, though kind of ridiculous, in the long run.