Man in the High Castle: TV

I can't figure out if I'm a fan of Philip K. Dick stories or whether I'm fan of movies based on his stories. I've only read a couple of his books, but seen several related movies and TV shows.

So, Man in the High Castle was required watching for me.

In Juliana Crain's world, the Nazis and the Japs win World War II. It's now in the early 1960s, and Juliana comes across mysterious silent films depicting the US winning the war. Viewers will recognize that it's actual footage from "our" universe. These films are collected by the Man in the High Castle -- whoever that is.

In this alternative war, the Nazis control everything to the east of the Rockies, and the Japs have everything to the west. The narrow band of land surrounding the Rockies is the Neutral Zone, which by treaty is not governed by Nazis nor Japs.

Hitler, himself, is still in charge in Berlin, but rumors are that he's nearing the end of his life, and most uprising contenders seem to desire war with Japan and its states. So, the upper leadership in Berlin is jockeying for position, the Nazi leadership in the Nazi States are also trying to stab each other in the back, and the Japanese leadership is trying to find a way to avoid war with the Nazis.

And whatever happens, the conquered Americans lose.

Well -- except for the resistance, who Juliana meets along the way.

Plus -- how are these videos appearing from some other universe?

Overall I thought it was executed rather well. The first two seasons were crazy good. The last two seasons were decent, still with good scenes, but less direction, and the season finale episode was terrible -- though everything mostly seems to come to a satisfactory end.

I always love the rebellions-rising-under-authoritarian-societies stories. Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever have to live out these scenarios (and sometimes it seems we get very close). So, this series really caught my attention.

It all seems to lead to a wonderful Season 2 finale, which feels like the end of a book.

And then Season 3 adds in some features that don't quite make sense -- trying to explore more of the sci-fi aspect. However, most of the original direction seemed to remain intact. 

Season 4 introduces an entirely new rebel group that we never saw in the first 3 seasons (kind of like what executives did to LOST in season 3). It was fun, but a jolt -- I wish these people had been with us the whole time, and not added as an after-thought.

The penultimate episode was excellent -- and I could almost suggest stopping there. Because the season finale doesn't seem to follow the direction of the rest of the show. It's like someone decided they wanted a specific ending so they could set up a certain person's last words -- which can certainly make one think -- but it wasn't actions I would have expected coming from the characters based on what had been established previously.

And the very last five minutes make no sense at all. Ugh. But it's easy to pretend it didn't happen. It didn't happen -- right? I still enjoyed the series as a whole. Many of the character arcs are wonderful (especially if you ignore the last episode).

One last complaint -- the writers definitely went out of their way to get the Nazi-killing-America shock value thing going. If you watch the trailer above, you can get a sense of it. Of course the Nazis wouldn't have everyone repeat a pledge saying "... and liberty for none." That's only intended to upset the watchers -- kind of clever, but not really.

Another example -- somewhere in there, a prominent Nazi watches a video of the Liberty Bell being melted down and changed into a large metal swastika. He says, "Excellent, excellent" with a big smile. And I'm thinking -- really? Getting excited over yet another swastika?

And yes -- there are swastikas everywhere. Having a party? Better have an ice sculpture of a swastika. And the only music you can play is German. A girl makes a cupcake? It's going to have swastika icing on top. I don't think in real life they would be quite so obsessed with the symbol. It was reminiscent of how the newer Doctor Who episodes like to depict Americans as people who always carry guns. Pew pew!

I also think it unfortunate to further ruin a religious symbol you can see on top of Buddhist temples. (It was interesting to see those symbols in South Korea knowing it wasn't Nazism, but I digress.)

As for accuracy in following the book -- I've only just now started reading the book -- of which I'll report in another month or so. But I can already see some differences. In the book, the Man in the High Castle produces books, not film (at least so far). There also seem to be plenty of characters added in the TV show, and a lot more added detail.

Either way -- I highly recommend this series. It does have a lot of unnecessary cussing (not in the book), but VidAngel can come to the rescue in that regard. It's only 40 episodes -- 10 in each season. Check it out!