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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Last year, Steven Spielberg credited Top Gun: Maverick with saving cinema. Now, with two industry reports last week suggesting that the era of “Peak TV” is over, could Spielberg’s own military aviation epic help usher in a new dawn for the small screen?
The long-gestating nine-part war saga Masters of the Air, produced by Spielberg and Tom Hanks for Apple TV+, certainly has a lot going for it. For one, it is a sister series to two hugely acclaimed HBO mini-series: 2001’s Band of Brothers and 2010’s The Pacific, which similarly dramatised the harrowing experiences and close camaraderie of US troops during the second world war. That legacy is complemented here by a voguish cast led by Elvis’s Austin Butler, rising star Callum Turner and the ever-electric Barry Keoghan (recently of Saltburn). Behind the cameras, feted directors such as Cary Joji Fukunaga and Dee Rees make the most of a budget comparable to that of a small nation’s defence expenditure (reports suggest a total budget of $250mn).
As the US Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group (aka the “Bloody Hundredth”) take to the skies on their campaign over Nazi-occupied Europe, the show delivers a multisensory, nerve-fraying immersion. With cries of “flak!” ringing out and missiles hitting the cockpit, you’re half-minded to check your own screen for damage. There are stirring exhibitions of courage and composure under inconceivable pressure while the horror and carnage of aerial warfare is never underplayed.
Though some of the characters are based on actual people, they can resemble archetypes more than distinct individuals. There is serious, unflappable Major Cleven (Butler), rakish, emotionally volatile Major Egan (Turner), pugnacious joker Lieutenant Biddick (Keoghan) and callow, queasy navigator Major Crosby. The latter is played with an anxious charm by Anthony Boyle, a standout among more illustrious names. Like many adrenaline-addicted pilots, the series struggles to find its feet back on land. The subject demands solemnity but Masters of the Air veers too much towards earnestness and sentimentality in its depiction of the soldiers’ life on base, which largely consists of mission briefings, banter and mourning.
A prestige spectacle in need of more human substance, Masters of the Air might not save TV single-handedly, but it is still a rousing testament to the real heroism of the Bloody Hundredth.
★★★☆☆
First two episodes on Apple TV+ from January 26; new episodes released weekly
