The first two episodes of the landmark World War II miniseries “Band of Brothers” aired on Sept. 9, 2001 (just two days before 9/11), and greatly contributed to the dawn of the era of Prestige TV, drawing millions of viewers to HBO, receiving nearly universal critical acclaim, garnering 20 Emmy nominations and seven wins, and winning the Golden Globe for best miniseries or TV movie.
Nearly a decade later, executive producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks brought the companion series “The Pacific” to HBO, and now they present the spiritual sequel “Masters of the Air,” a nine-part series airing on Apple TV+ that proves to be a worthy third chapter in the trilogy. This is an epic, sprawling, pulse-pounding series that is augmented with spectacular modern-day VFX but also filled with the spirit, tone and style of old-fashioned World War II movies.
Is it corny at times, filled with dialogue along the lines of, “Don’t you die on me,” and, “Incoming at 7 o’clock!” and, “Bombs away!” and, “We’re going to stick with this mission as long as we can fly!”? Absolutely. Is it an unabashedly flag-waving, patriotic ode to the United States Army Air Forces heroes who risked (and in many cases, lost) their lives fighting for their country? Hell yes.
These young men, many of whom had never been even ON a plane until they received their training, were fighting Hitler’s Third Reich. Although there’s a moment or two when a character expresses concerns about the carnage that could result from a particular mission, that’s quickly addressed when one veteran pilot who has seen the horrors of a death camp says, “The things these people are capable of — they got it coming.”
Created by John Shiban and John Orloff and directed by a talented roster that includes Cary Joji Fukunaga (“Beasts of No Nation,” “No Time to Die”), Anna Boden and Ryan K. Fleck (“Captain Marvel”), Dee Rees (“Mudbound”) and Tim Van Patten (“The Sopranos,” “Boardwalk Empire”), the series is based on the Donald L. Miller book “Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany” and features more than a dozen main characters, all based on the real-life pilots, navigators, bombardiers, flight engineers, radio operators, tail gunners, etc., who were part of the Eighth Air Force’s heroic 100th Bomb Group, nicknamed “The Bloody Hundredth” due to the overwhelming number of casualties sustained on missions from June of 1943 to April of 1945.
You gotta have a couple of Best Buddies With Little in Common in a series such as this, and “Masters of the Air” benefits from the twin star presence of Austin Butler as Major Gale “Buck” Cleven, who doesn’t drink, doesn’t follow sports, doesn’t carouse with the ladies and cares only about looking after his men and getting home to his beloved Marge (Isabel May), and Callum Turner as Major John “Bucky” Egan, a brave but hot-tempered sort who loves to blow off steam between death-defying missions.
Butler looks every inch the movie star, even if he occasionally falls into his post-Elvis Southern drawl while playing a guy from Wyoming, while Turner sublimates his British accent to convincingly plays the Wisconsin-born Egan. (A number of British and Irish actors have been cast as Americans; all do fine work, even if the accents occasionally wobble.)
“Masters of the Air” prominently features the exploits of Cleven and Egan, from their time at the Thorpe Abbotts home base in England through their countless missions through their imprisonment at the Stalag Luft III POW camp, but often shifts points of view. Anthony Boyle’s Lt. Harry Crosby, the lead navigator for the 100th Division, actually serves as the voice-over narrator, and is one of several characters who have engrossing and sometimes surprising story arcs.
Other standouts include:
- Barry Keoghan as the rowdy Lt. Curtis Biddick, who takes out a snooty British pilot in an old-fashioned “Let’s step outside” brawl.
- Ncuti Gatwa as 2nd Lt. Robert Daniels, Branden Cook as 2nd Lt. Alexander Jefferson and Josiah Cross as 2nd Lt. Richard D. Macon, all of the Tuskegee Airmen.
- Bel Powley as Alexandra “Sandra” Wingate, a British spy.
- And Nate Mann in a true star turn as Maj. Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal, an ace pilot who somehow survived the requisite 25 missions that earned him a ticket home — but insisted on staying on and continuing the fight.
With the luxury of nine episodes, “Masters of the Air” can take a number of detours, whether it’s a subplot about members of the French Resistance helping downed American pilots return to England, the “Stalag 17”-like POW sequences, a brief detour to Africa or fleeting departures from the battle skies when someone is granted leave.
Mostly, though, it’s about the seemingly endless bomber runs, which are depicted with video-game slickness but also gruesome realities, as we see planes destroyed by gunfire and exploding in the sky and men screaming in agony from horrific wounds that would often prove to be fatal. “Masters of the Air” is an unblinking chronicle of the almost unimaginable cost of war, and a glowing tribute to the 100th Bomb Group, who just kept on coming and would not be stopped.
