by Haley Mitchell, managing editor
Swastikas, “Sieg Heils” all around, and a healthy (or unhealthy?) smattering of Japanese Imperialism have made the stigma surrounding this series less than attractive. Based on Philip K. Dick’s infamous novel of the same name, The Man in the High Castle was released nine months ago to Amazon Prime users and has since garnered little attention for a show that so interestingly and maybe even authentically walks the line between dystopian and historical fiction.
A little over a decade after the Axis Powers have won World War II, citizens of what was formerly America now enjoy an existence in either the Japanese Pacific States (West Coast), the Greater Nazi Reich (East Coast) or the chaotic Neutral Zone nested in between. Juliana Crane (Alexa Davalos) lives in San Francisco and has become assimilated into Japanese culture, studying Aikido and even speaking the language of the occupying enemy much her parents’ chagrin. Trudy, Juliana’s troublesome half-sister comes into town for one night, though her untimely murder by the Japanese secret police leaves Juliana in possession of an illegal reel of film which depicts a different United States than the one she knows. The film takes Juliana on a hectic trek into the Neutral Zone to meet a rebel agent (Luke Kleintank) who she will pass it off to.
From there, the show is an amalgamation of complicated characters and their intricacies reacting to one another, though despite the interconnected-ness of it all, plot holes are slim to nonexistent.
It is, however, hard to criticize the series when its basis is entirely a “what if?” scenario. Because it takes place not immediately following a Nazi war victory, but something like twenty years after, any sort of background information is given as underwhelming hints and therefore make the fictional universe somewhat frustrating to navigate. The lack of insight is made up for with seamless production value. CGI is obviously used—how else would they put a giant Nazi headquarters in the middle of New York?—but it’s good.
The worst thing about this show is that has set the standards incredibly high for every other show I try to get into. I’ve tried filling the gap with Hannibal, with Under the Dome, but nothing touches TMitHC‘s brilliant rearrangement of reality and fiction. Season two can’t come soon enough.
