There’s more content than ever about espionage and covert intelligence, but most shows based on these subjects tend to characterize spycraft as an exciting, action-packed profession. Even if these shows do not universally endorse or sympathize with the characters that they portray, they do offer a depiction of their work that boasts the epic scope and scale of what is inherently compelling. Patriot is a downbeat, darkly funny, and frequently avant-garde spy series that is a bit too disturbing to be a comedy, too strange to be a straightforward drama, and too experimental to be lumped in with other streaming genre shows. There aren’t any broad characteristics that can be used to describe Patriot because of how original it was, and the series deserves more recognition for being one of the early indicators of how inventive streaming shows could be.
