Masters of the Air was originally passed on by HBO due to scheduling delays and budget conflicts but was later picked up again by Apple TV+, making it Apple’s first in-house series, and aren’t we all glad that happened because it seemed like it was worth it.
The harrowing drama miniseries from the executive producers of Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010) premiered its first two episodes together in a double-feature that immerses us into the community of young Air Force pilots from the 100th Bomb Group during the second World War, bonded by the losses and triumphs of their mission.
Here’s a summarized review of Episode 1 and Episode 2 of Masters of the Air, breaking down everything good and bad about the Apple miniseries premiere.
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Masters of the Air Episode 1 & Episode 2 Review
+ The airborne action sequences
Each episode feels like it tries to walk a fine line between individual character moments and ramped-up airborne action. Both aspects of the show have their own strengths that contribute to the story’s unfolding, and we’ll look at them shortly. However, where Masters of the Air truly shines and achieves memorability is with its gripping action sequences.
It’s a thrill to watch every single scene of the Air Force pilots on their missions because the intensity of the experience carries through the screen flawlessly, thanks to the acting, carefully executed visual effects, and sound design. The direction translates the claustrophobia and anxiety levels of being in the aircrafts brilliantly, so that when something goes awry, you feel the severe impact just as much.
+ The evolution of the character beats
Being able to have distinct characters with distinguishable personalities worth rooting for is essential to capturing audiences’ engagement with a show like this.
Although it took a bit to get there, Masters of the Air eventually learns how to lay down tangible groundwork for the characters we’re about to spend 9 episodes with, namely, what feels like the 4 main horsemen so far: Maj. Gale “Buck” Cleven (Austin Butler), Maj. John “Bucky” Egan (Callum Turner), Lt. Harry Crosby (Anthony Boyle), and Lt. Curtis Biddick (Barry Keoghan).
The second episode manages to land some quite effective character beats in-between the chaos, letting us in on fragments of their pasts and their attitudes. It’s safe to speculate that the character building will only get better from here now that the foundation, although wobbly, has been laid.
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- The pacing in the pilot
As mentioned above, the pacing was off to a rocky start in the pilot of Masters of the Air. The issues stemmed mainly from the fact that the series felt like it was impatient to incorporate everything at once, especially to showcase its advantages in action-packed settings.
As a result of the overly ambitious introduction, we lose some of the depth of our protagonists, the characters meant to carry the emotional core of the show (or at least the ones we are led to believe are). In such cases, less is more, but we’re not allowed to sit with a character for too long before we’re thrown back into more military operations.
- The many characters
The other obstacle occasionally standing between the audience and the characters is their sheer quantity. It could be argued that Masters of the Air doesn’t take its time to explore the humanity simply because there’s too much ground to cover.
It’s a difficult balance to strike in the 100th Bomb Group that consists of over 350 Air Force members, perhaps even impossible from a writing standpoint, but the action sequences from the very beginning arguably took up potential character-building opportunities that would be otherwise essential for a pilot of such scale.
Read here for more details about what to expect from Masters of the Air Episode 3 and the next chapter’s release date and time.
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