Masters of the Air Early Review

The following is a spoiler-free review of Masters of the Air. The first 2 episodes of the limited series premiere this Friday on AppleTV+

In what’s already proving to be a formidable beginning to cable and streaming series in 2024, Master of the Air, the new Apple TV+ series produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, and created by John Orloff, makes a near-perfect case to be the 2nd must-watch series of this year, with the top spot reserved for True Detective: Night Country. Nonetheless, for returning fans and new viewers of the previous accompanying production pieces; Band of Brothers, which focused on the US paratroopers in the Eastern European theater of World War II, and The Pacific, which focused on US Marines in the Pacific theater of WWII, there is a welcomed familiarity to the narrative structure and delivery of the series which, this time, focuses on the bombardier pilots of the “Bloody 100th” Division as they progressed their way into the heart of Germany in WWII.

Similarly to its predecessors, Masters of the Air establishes the series’ beating heart by creating an effective connection with audiences with its central characters right away, pilots Major Gale “Buck” Cleven, Major John “Bucky” Egan, who are its eyes and emotional gauge while navigation officer, Lt. Harry Crosby, serves as its narrator as they enter and endure WWII while tasked with bombing strategic sites in Eastern Europe in order to ultimately reach Berlin, Germany and end the war. Naturally, the true strength of the series lies within its expertly crafted cast. Comprised of standouts, Austin Butler (Maj. Buck Cleven), Callum Turner (Maj. Bucky Egan), Barry Keoghan (Lt. Curtis Biddick), and supported by an equally strong supporting cast with Anthony Boyle (Lt. Harry Crosby), Nate Mann (Maj. Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal) and many others whose chemistry and embodiment of their real-life counterparts help to effectively portray a generation that is growing more and more distant with each passing day, making a project telling their stories even more essential.

That being said, Masters of the Air is not without its faults. The most glaring of these is the poor decision to release the 9-episode series on a weekly basis which hinders any true momentum being generated for a series that will essentially be relegated to many viewers’ respective watchlists only after its episodes have been released. Narratively, while the series showcases the Second World War from yet another impactful angle, it still seems to be chasing the elusive heights reached in the first series, Band of Brothers, by immediately focusing on a larger core group of soldiers as they began boot camp training, bonded, and then were thrust into a war that galvanized them. This pathway made it all the more impactful when one of them was lost in battle only to have their replacement arrive and take up an equally emotionally important role.

With Masters, there is still a degree of this investment happening, but outside of its central core cast, there is very little emotional investment in a rotating supporting cast that, at times, are reduced to name, ranks, and oxygen masks on screen to later become fodder for German artillery. Additionally, the narrative structure can appear slightly formulaic as the pilots are given a mission briefing, execute that mission, encounter resistance, lose soldiers, rinse and repeat. This repetition serves as a double-edged sword because it can be seen as a minor hindrance it simultaneously uses these common missions as building blocks for the audience to emotionally attach to the series’ characters, which only benefits the overall payoff as it unfolds. The series does cleverly pivot from this direction later on which leads its central cast down interesting pathways in the last months of the war that only add to the overall experience chronicling their incredible stories.

At the end of the day, Masters of the Air is a beautiful continuation of the necessary storytelling of a generation that was asked to forego their future by participating in a war whose ripple effects are still felt today. It’s a masterpiece in honoring their stories by choosing to completely commit to many of the senseless directives that cost lives while also championing those events where truly evil motives were vanquished. Even greater, is how the series’ accurate portrayal of a faction of the war effort that is often glamorized, even through death and sacrifice, where the actual cost of encountering the enemy exacts a price for each who participates that far exceeds the actual war itself.

Masters of the Air expertly crafts its individual stories into a collective tapestry that both honors and reveres the soldiers of the Bloody 100th Division and ensures that their lives are immortalized on the screen alongside those of 101st Airborne and the Marines of The Pacific.

still courtesy of AppleTV+

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