A minaret at sunrise and the soft lament of a Muslim call to prayer. Nobody needs to wait for a location — Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran — to be tapped out in military-style type.
黎明的清真寺尖塔，一位穆斯林的轻声祈祷。没人需要等着屏幕上以军事风格的字体打出地点——大马士革、巴格达或德黑兰。
That image has become as common and convenient a signifier as helicopters flying over rice paddies to the sounds of Buffalo Springfield (“Stop, children, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down”) are for the Vietnam War.
这幅画面已经变成一个便捷的常用符号，就像直升机伴随着水牛春田乐队(Buffalo Springfield)的歌声（“等一下，孩子们，那是什么声音？大家都在看什么坠落了”）飞过稻田一定是关于越南战争。

If a show opens with a mosque bathed in dim light and mournful Middle Eastern music, then this must be a drama about Washington and the war on terrorism.
如果一部电视剧以沐浴在微光中的清真寺和悲伤的中东音乐开场，那它一定是关于华盛顿和反恐战争的。
That’s how “Madam Secretary” begins on Sunday on CBS, and that familiar landscape (in this case, it’s Damascus at dawn) is an early clue that there is not a lot of creative license in this enjoyable but by-the-book drama about a female secretary of state.
周日，CBS频道的《国务卿夫人》(Madam Secretary)就是这样开场的，那个熟悉的场景（这一次是黎明时的大马士革）早早地暗示我们，这部关于女国务卿的电视剧虽然好看但完全是照本宣科，没有太多创意。
Hillary Rodham Clinton is the obvious inspiration, but this is Hillary with a human face: Téa Leoni, who has a husky voice and a loose, engaging manner, is an unusually likable beauty. As Elizabeth McCord, she has all the brains and determination of the original and none of the political ambition and baggage.
它显然是以希拉里·罗德姆·克林顿(Hillary Rodham Clinton)为原型，不过这位“希拉里”有着人性化的面容：蒂亚·莱昂尼(Téa Leoni)嗓音沙哑，举止自在迷人，是个非常可爱的美女。与她饰演的伊丽莎白·麦科德(Elizabeth McCord)一样，她拥有希拉里的头脑和决心，却没有她的政治野心和重负。
It’s a what-if scenario, a wish-fulfillment do-over in which Mrs. Clinton is dragged reluctantly into high office and spends her time there making the world a safer place, not planning her next move in Iowa.
这个假想剧本是令人满意的改写：这位“克林顿夫人”是被勉强推上要职的，不得不花时间维持世界和平，而不能在爱荷华州计划她的下一步行动。
And that’s why a closer model for Mrs. Clinton can be found in a different what-if scenario, namely that of “The Good Wife,” the series about a politician’s wife whose husband is brought down by a sex scandal. She stands by his side for a while, then leaves him and restarts her legal career from scratch.
所以，与克林顿夫人更接近的人物在另一个假想剧本里——《傲骨贤妻》(The Good Wife)。该剧讲述一个政客的妻子，丈夫因性丑闻下台。她支持了他一段时间，而后离开了他，白手起家重新开始自己的法律事业。
That CBS drama returns for a sixth season on Sunday, and the premiere is bracing and unexpected. Especially given how long this show has lasted, it’s a credit to the imagination and energy of its married creators, Robert and Michelle King, that “The Good Wife” has remained so watchable.
周日，该剧第六季在CBS频道回归，第一集振奋人心，出人意料。该剧已经演了这么长时间，却还这么有观赏性。这要归功于它的创作者、罗伯特和米歇尔·金(Robert and Michelle King)夫妇的想像力和活力。
But another reason for its enduring popularity is that Alicia Florrick, the betrayed wife played by Julianna Margulies, has guile as well as gumption. She is sympathetic but also devious and not beyond using connections, deceiving friends and twisting the truth to get what she wants, including, last season, her own firm.
但是，它经久不衰的另一个原因是朱莉安娜·玛格里斯(Julianna Margulies)饰演的遭到背叛的妻子艾丽西娅·弗劳里克(Alicia Florrick)既精明又狡猾。她有同情心，但也同样不择手段，为了得到想要的东西，她不惜利用人情关系、欺骗朋友、歪曲事实，比如在上一季中，她就用这些手段创立了自己的公司。
In other words, Alicia is a closer match to Mrs. Clinton: believably imperfect even when legal plot twists grow convoluted and outré.
换句话说，艾丽西娅更接近克林顿夫人：她的不完美让人觉得可信，甚至当和法律有关的剧情转折非常复杂离奇的时候也是如此。
In some ways, “Madam Secretary” seeks to be realistic about Washington. The first episode involves hostage taking in Syria and even a failed rescue operation that eerily echoes the one that the Obama administration ordered over the summer to save James Foley and other Americans held by the group that calls itself the Islamic State, even though the pilot was filmed before revelations of the government attempt.
从某些方面讲，《国务卿夫人》想要以现实主义的方式描绘华盛顿。第一集涉及叙利亚的人质劫持事件，甚至连失败的救援行动也怪异地让人想起今年夏天奥巴马政府下令解救被自称伊斯兰国的组织劫持的詹姆斯·福莱(James Foley)和其他美国人，尽管这一情节在政府的尝试曝光前就已拍摄好。
This is a prime-time network show, however, so the outcome is not as horrible as the videotaped beheadings that happened in real life.
不过，它是公共电视台黄金时段的电视剧，所以结果不像现实中的斩首视频那么可怕。
The presentation of politics is just as sanitized. In this fantasy, Elizabeth did not seek a cabinet post; it was forced upon her. She is a former C.I.A. analyst who quit for unexplained ethical reasons and is content to teach political science and raise horses with her husband, Henry (Tim Daly), and their two children. Elizabeth reluctantly accepts the job only after the president (Keith Carradine), her former mentor at the C.I.A., insists.
该剧对政治的描绘也同样干净。在该剧中，伊丽莎白没有寻求内阁职位，这个职位是强加在她身上的。她曾担任中央情报局的分析员，因未说明的道德原因辞职，满足于教授政治学，和丈夫亨利（Henry，蒂姆·达利[Tim Daly]饰）以及两个孩子一起养马。是因为总统（基思·卡拉丹[Keith Carradine]饰）坚决要求，她才勉强答应的。总统曾在中央情报局担任她的导师。
She arrives in Washington, ready to make a difference and immediately gets on the wrong side of the president’s domineering and manipulative chief of staff, Russell Jackson, who so resembles former Vice President Dick Cheney that the actor, Zeljko Ivanek, sports a ghost of the crooked half-smile that Mr. Cheney was famous for.
她来到华盛顿，打算做出点业绩，很快与专横跋扈、喜欢操纵别人的总统幕僚长拉塞尔·杰克逊(Russell Jackson)交恶。后者酷似前副总统迪克·切尼(Dick Cheney)，饰演他的泽利科·伊万内克(Zeljko Ivanek)惟妙惟肖地演绎出切尼的招牌笑脸——嘴歪到一边，似笑非笑。
Russell wants to be in charge. Elizabeth wants to save lives. In one of the show’s better scenes, Russell confronts Elizabeth after she handled a crisis without his approval. He asks her how she did it.
拉塞尔想掌握大权。伊丽莎白想拯救生命。在该剧较为精彩的一幕中，伊丽莎白未经拉塞尔同意就处理了一场危机，之后拉塞尔质问她是如何做到的。
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth replies with a shrug. “By blatantly circumnavigating your authority?”
“我不知道，”伊丽莎白耸耸肩回答道，“也许是通过公然绕开你的权威？”
Television is suddenly full of women in power, and that is as much because of Shonda Rhimes and the success of her Washington melodrama, “Scandal,” as because of Mrs. Clinton. “Homeland,” the Showtime espionage thriller, has also opened doors.
电视上突然之间充满了大权在握的女人，这缘于克林顿夫人，也同样缘于珊达·莱梅斯(Shonda Rhimes)。后者关于华盛顿的耸人听闻的电视剧《丑闻》(Scandal)非常成功。映时频道(Showtime)的间谍惊悚剧《国土安全》(Homeland)也有所帮助。
“State of Affairs,” an NBC show coming in November, doubles down by stealing a bit from “Scandal” and a bit from “Homeland.” Alfre Woodard is the president, and Katherine Heigl is her most trusted, though personally troubled, national security adviser.
《国事家事》(State of Affairs)即将于11月在NBC频道播出，它分别从《丑闻》和《国土安全》中窃取了一些元素，混合到一起。阿尔弗雷·伍达德(Alfre Woodard)饰演总统，凯瑟琳·海格尔(Katherine Heigl)饰演一个国家安全顾问，虽然被个人问题所困扰，但仍是女总统最信任的人。
Oddly, these new dramas showcase bold women in command but are timid about tapping into the kind of cynicism and character assassination that helped “Scandal” and “House of Cards,” on Netflix, become hits.
奇怪的是，这些新剧展现大权在握的英勇女人，却不敢怀疑和诋毁政治人物——《丑闻》和Netflix公司的《纸牌屋》正是凭靠着这样的怀疑和诋毁成了热门。
ABC had enough faith in Ms. Rhimes, after her “Grey’s Anatomy” proved a hit, to back “Scandal” and won big. CBS, which has had so much success with squeaky-clean naval heroes on “NCIS” that it is adding a second spinoff, “NCIS: New Orleans,” on Tuesday, is evidently loath to try material that may be too dark for many viewers.
莱梅斯的《实习医生格蕾》(Grey’s Anatomy)风靡一时之后，ABC频道对她十分信任，投资拍摄她的《丑闻》，大获成功。CBS频道曾因《海军罪案调查处》中无可指责的海军英雄们大获成功，所以周二又加了一个续集——《海军罪案调查处：新奥尔良》(NCIS: New Orleans)，它显然不愿尝试对很多观众来说过于黑暗的内容。
“The Good Wife” stands out because it strikes the right balance of network-mandated virtue and cable-inspired vice. “Madam Secretary” has some good moments, but it would be better if its heroine were just a little bit worse.
《傲骨贤妻》脱颖而出是因为它在公共电视台要求的美德和有线电视台鼓励的邪恶之间取得了完美的平衡。《国务卿女士》中有一些精彩时刻，但是它的女主人公要是能稍微坏一点就更好了。