The camera follows a well-dressed man and his golden retriever out the door of a spacious kitchen to a manicured lawn. It pans to show the back of a stately white mansion and then cuts to show its front, with an American flag flying in the yard. The scene looks like it could come from any other reality show chronicling the lives of the rich or famous, but there is one key exception. He is the U.S. ambassador to Denmark, perhaps the least likely TV star this side of the Baltic Sea.

Ambassador Rufus Gifford, finance director...