A Brief Note: Whenever I review a series, I try to be as objective in my review as possible. However, it’s rare that I review a series that has such close ties to my own family history. My grandfather, Robert Ryan, was a B-17 bombardier, stationed in England, with the US Army Air Corps in World War II. While he rarely spoke of his time in the service, the few stories he shared with us aligned so very closely to the events of Masters of the Air that it was hard – at times – to watch the series and not see his own story on the screen. While I’ll certainly be as objective as possible in this review, I must say that this series gave me a much deeper appreciation for all that he and his fellow airmen endured during their time in the service, and I am so incredibly grateful that he was one of the lucky ones to make it back alive.
After the massive successes of Band of Brothers (2001, on HBO) and The Pacific (2010, also on HBO), it’s no surprise that Tom Hanks and his Playtone production company and Steven Spielberg and Amblin Television are once again teaming up to tell a tale of World War II struggle, suffering, and ultimately, success in the form of Masters of the Air, the first team up between these major Hollywood players and AppleTV+. Adapted from Donald L. Miller’s non-fiction book “Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany,” and focused on the 100th Bomb Group – a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber unit stationed in England and known as “The Bloody Hundredth” for the excessive casualties they suffered on their missions, the series covers a lot of ground while using a handful of characters to show us just what it took to fly such perilous missions in hopes of turning the tide of the war.
The series is gorgeous, from exquisite costumes, high octane battle sequences, and stunning European vistas (some of which are certainly CGI, but still look pretty great). As with past World War II epics from this production team, the cast begins rather sprawling before shrinking into a much more manageable core of central characters who we follow through the completion of the war. And, as is often the case with such overloaded casts, it’s impossible to really get a grasp on the various characters until those later episodes of the series. I found myself mostly at a loss as the cast looks pretty similar across the board – save for the couple of recognizable actors among their ranks – and the scripts rarely take much time at all to provide any sort of character development for most of the characters outside of labeling them a member of the Air Corps. Which means that the early battle sequences don’t resonate on an emotional level – when a nameless character (or ten) is killed, we understand the seemingly insurmountable odds the B-17 crews face*, but the impact on the viewer is muted in that we know next to nothing about the characters involved in the bloodshed.
*One thing the series makes clear is just how deadly the early years of the B-17 bombing runs were. Until the advent of the P-51 Mustang fighter planes – something that is outlined in the later episodes of the series as a godsend – the bombers were flying daylight missions (while the RAF flew night runs) and only had fighters who had enough fuel to go with the bombers across the English Channel. Meaning the bombers were on their own once they crossed into enemy territory, leading to massive losses. When discussing the war, my grandfather stressed that without the P-51s, they would have continued to be sitting ducks – and the series makes this very clear.
The series ultimately follows four central characters throughout its run: pilot Major Gale Cleven (Austin Butler, still sporting traces of his Elvis accent), pilot Major John Egan (Callum Turner, giving a star-making turn), navigator Major Harry Crosby (Anthony Boyle, our narrator and emotional center of the series), and pilot Major Robert Rosenthal (Nate Mann, incredibly effective from his arrival to the end of the series). Egan and Rosenthal get the bulk of the hero moments – the writing asks both characters to be the audience surrogate when it comes to the shocking losses experienced by the unit and later see the characters as the moral center of various mini-arcs – and Turner and Mann are more than up for the task, keeping focus in the face of major battle sequences and imbuing their characters with a humanity that is missing from many of the supporting players (who lack the depth these two characters are provided with). Similarly, Boyle’s Crosby is asked to be the emotional center for the story – he gets to be emotional and cry, he gets to be cerebral and recognize the dangers being faced, he gets to be the comic relief at the outset of the story as Crosby continually gets air sick on missions – and he manages swimmingly. It’s Butler’s Cleven who is the weak link in the group. I’m unsure how much of it is performance and how much is writing, but we’re never really allowed into Cleven’s mind and emotional state – we see him perform admirably, but we also see him mainly through the eyes of his men and his best friend Egan. We rarely get much insight into the character himself, which is disappointing as he’s held up to be such a point of focus for his men, someone they would gladly follow into battle with no hesitation, but we never really get an understanding as to why.
The other disappointing choice within the story in the inclusion, briefly, of a squadron of Tuskegee Airmen. It’s not their inclusion in the story that I was frustrated by, rather, it was how little (and cursory) the story we were presented with was compared to the time spent with the 100th. Now, there’s a reason they are briefly included – the characters factor into a later plot point that includes a couple of our central characters – but their story is so lightly covered that it seems that their inclusion is only to serve the story of the white characters later in the series. And that doesn’t work at all. The story of the Tuskegee Airmen deserves more than a perfunctory addition to a series like this one – and it certainly shouldn’t be used to further the story of white characters.
But, overall, Masters of the Air is another solid World War II series from the masters of the genre. Smart, generally well-written, and stunning, the series absolutely hits the right notes when it comes to telling the story of this group of men who helped turn the tide of the war – and who sacrificed far too much in the process. There are some narrative and character shortcomings – perhaps another episode would have helped flesh them out a bit – but the overall series worked. I was engrossed in the story for so many reasons and found myself genuinely moved at its close when we learn the ultimate fates of the real people we met in the story. If you’re a World War II buff, or simply looking for an engaging drama, Masters of the Air is well worth your time.
Masters of the Air premiers on January 26 on AppleTV+. All nine episodes of the series were provided for review.
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