New episodes of Masters of the Air stream every Friday on Apple TV+, with the finale airing on March 15th.
By Elazar Abrahams
When Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks get their hands on a World War II project, viewers are always in for a treat. The pair began in 1998 with the tremendous Saving Private Ryan, which Spielberg directed and Hanks starred in. The pair then created and produced the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, focused on a group of American paratroopers during the conflict, and then followed it up with the accompanying 2010’s The Pacific, centered around Marines of the same era. Now, well over a decade later, the creative team rounds out their television trilogy with Masters of the Air, and it’s every bit as glorious as one might have hoped.
Masters of the Air centers around the American Air Force pilots stationed in eastern England beginning in 1943. It serves as a great companion to Brothers and Pacific, but it truly stands on its own as a remarkable achievement of filmmaking. Leading up to D-Day the Eighth Air Force had a staggering casualty rate — 77 percent were killed, injured, or captured; the highest rate of any of the American armed forces and the number of fatalities was higher than the entire U.S. Marine Corps during the war. The nine episodes showcase the courage of these men in such detail, putting the camera right in the cockpit with them as they take to the skies in rickety aircrafts and target Nazis in scrappy dogfights. Each hour is thrilling, intense, and moving.
This is in large part due to the elite direction of the series. The show has assembled a murderer’s row of directors including Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck, Tim Van Patten, and especially Cary Joji Fukunaga, who helms the first four episodes. Fukunaga is best known for directing the first season of True Detective and the James Bond movie No Time To Die. The man may be an alleged abuser, but he sure can direct the hell out of an episode of television.
The show also rides on the charisma of its two leads, Austin Butler as Major Gale “Buck” Gleven and Callum Turner as Major John “Bucky” Egan. Yes, their nicknames are Buck and Bucky. Those who doubted Butler’s Elvis performance have no cause to mock anymore — the man firmly establishes him as a seriously talented actor here. Turner too, shows his chops. If one could buy stock in celebrities, you’d surely walk away from the show wanting to invest in him. Callum Turner will be the next big thing. Gleven and Egan are the best pilots the squadron has got, and even better friends. They each dominate the screen, both slick and suave and chewing the scenery.
The rest of the cast including Barry Keoghan, Anthony Boyle, and Nate Mann, are good as well but all kind of blend together. This is the crux of an issue with the series: It’s sometimes hard to follow who’s who in the sea of handsome white men. A large ensemble is present, but most characters stay underdeveloped and two-dimensional throughout the season. In any war story, audiences need to be emotionally attached to the troops on a personal level, and Masters of the Air falls a bit short of that goal. Even in the case of Butler and Turner’s magnificent performances, it’s hard to form a bond with them. Perhaps this can be chalked up to the fact that the show is based on a true story, and the men depicted actually existed. Therefore, the writers cannot change who gets sidelined as more and more planes get shot down each mission the boys embark on. Reinforcements come in, and suddenly there are more faces to remember before audiences even cared about the ones that just left. On a practical level, this harms the pathos of the show, even if it is realistic.
Masters of the Air is at its best when it depicts the brutality of war. Certain scenes are intense beyond belief. Nearly every episode has at least one big action set piece that will take your breath away. What these soldiers went through, almost all before the age of 25, is truly unfathomable to us today. Buckle up for the first must watch of 2024.
I give Masters of the Air an A-.
TV and City 