Masters of the Air premieres Friday, January 26 on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes. Subsequent episodes will arrive every Friday until March 15, 2024.
Revisiting the Era of Prestige Television: Masters of the Air
For TV viewers of a certain vintage, 2001’s Band of Brothers was prestige television before the bulk of us had a firm grasp of what that would really go on to mean. Executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks in the wake of 1998’s Saving Private Ryan, the widely acclaimed and hugely successful Band of Brothers was the most expensive TV miniseries ever made at the time of its broadcast (and one of the best-selling DVDs in the history of the format, to boot). In hindsight, it was vastly ahead of its time.
Like 2010’s The Pacific, Masters of the Air is a companion series to Band of Brothers, this time created by Band of Brothers writer John Orloff. Like Band of Brothers, this long-gestating, nine-part miniseries takes us back to the European theatre of World War II, but this time it’s from a new perspective – one that begins 25,000 feet above enemy territory in freezing, uninsulated, and unpressurised heavy bombers, delivering high explosives to the heart of Hitler’s Reich. Also like Band of Brothers, it is very, very good.
Based on the book by historian Donald L. Miller, Masters of the Air retells the true story of the 100th Bomb Group, known as the Bloody Hundredth. The show focuses largely on a core group of real-life WWII airmen – pilots and firm friends Gale “Buck” Cleven and John “Bucky” Egan, navigator Harry Crosby, and the highly decorated pilot Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal. That said, the spotlight does later expand to feature other real-life heroes from outside the Bloody Hundredth (including members of the 332nd Fighter Group, who are far more famously known as the Red Tails, or the Tuskegee Airmen).
Austin Butler is absorbing as the quietly spoken but assertive Buck Cleven. It’s a performance that comes across as very Elvis-adjacent (albeit with a slightly softened country twang) but there’s a swagger to it that makes him seem effortlessly at home in the ’40s setting. Nate Mann similarly succeeds as Rosie Rosenthal, a man whose real-life WWII experience was nothing short of remarkable. It’s abridged somewhat here, but Mann’s Rosenthal endears himself to the audience as a sympathetic soul who is nonetheless unwaveringly committed to giving Nazi Germany what’s coming to it.
English actor Callum Turner is equally impressive as Bucky Egan, whose hard drinking and more swashbuckling attitude makes him an effective contrast to his best friend, Cleven. It actually wouldn’t surprise me if plenty of Masters of the Air viewers arrive at the end of the series with no idea Turner himself isn’t American, just like they did after the star-making performance of English actor Damian Lewis on Band of Brothers. Indeed, the same could be said about Irish actor Anthony Boyle as Harry Crosby, whose panic-stricken initial moments in the series make him one of the easiest characters to relate to.
Masters of the Air wobbles a bit with its initial pacing, and it’s interesting that as a nine-part series it feels as if there could have been one more episode at the start that spent more time in the United States, perhaps highlighting flight training, or a little more of the backstories of the main players. (Band of Brothers and The Pacific, for reference, each have 10 episodes.) As it stands, it’s left up to the dialogue to fill the gaps. It’s done organically enough, but it does feel like it’s in an unnecessary hurry to get started.
What Masters of the Air does very well, however, is painting a nicely broad picture of the work it took to wage a daylight bombing campaign over Europe, both in the air and on the ground. The operations level, the work of the ground and medical crews, and the heroism of the airmen themselves is all illustrated. Masters of the Air also depicts the POW experience, which is an incredibly important aspect of the war to acknowledge considering just how many thousands of pilots and aircrew were shot down during WWII.
There is no doubt, however, that Masters of the Air is at its most thrilling in the skies, and the visual effects do a good job of translating both the violence and sheer velocity of WWII air combat to the screen. Viewed from the cockpits of the B-17s, watching the specks of dozens of enemy fighters manoeuvre at the American bombers is an intimidating sight – especially with the contrails they leave behind arcing out towards the formations like icy fingers. The over-the-shoulder viewpoints on the gunners, combined with the staggering head-on closing speeds of the fighters, makes the air-to-air action suitably quick and chaotic. Despite their immense overall size, things are clearly very cramped inside the B-17s. The horrible impact of enemy fire on the crews and planes themselves has a claustrophobic intensity reminiscent of 2014’s Fury. Masters of the Air effectively pendulates between periods of acute and sometimes catastrophic danger and the relative safety of the bomber base, with its hearty breakfasts and well-stocked bar, and the emotional effects that bouncing between the two extremes has on the crews are explored.
Is there anything here that can quite match the emotion conjured by the rousing and entirely practical sequence of real B-17s taking off in the 1990 film Memphis Belle? No, probably not – but it does get close. Certainly the excellent depictions of immensely damaged and mangled B-17s nursing their men back to England is pretty stirring stuff, and a fine salute to the folks who fabricated them, flew them, and fixed them.
Masters of the Air whips through stretches of WWII quickly at times, but it sticks impressively to the facts otherwise. Those who are already across some of the history of daylight bombing, and specifically the Bloody Hundredth, will likely appreciate the smaller details the show observes – but those who aren’t should perhaps resist the urge to Google the exploits of the men involved if they want to learn about them at the show’s pace.