The Man in the High Castle TV series

[ctg]

I gave the pilot a go and I just didn't find it that compelling though.

I'm sorry. I believe the biggest thing that turn people away from this is the usage of extremism. Especially by altering the end of the Second World War and let the history run through the terrible tragedies. Thing about that is they acknowledge the subject in the second season number of times and they'll repeat the same message: "It was an error in the judgement."

Yet, still the history repeats itself as it trod down towards the doom as if there is nothing that could be done about it. How it ends, I don't want to spoil about it by saying too much. Still I think they've tried their best to stay loyal to PKD's vision by showing how alternate this world is from ours, while they try their best to trick the audience to believe in the storyline history instead of their brain saying: "No."

 

[Brian G Turner]

Watched the first episode and really enjoyed it. Was especially glad that they didn't try to be gratuitous with blood or violence. I'm going to see if the rest of the family might enjoy it.

 

[ctg]

I'm going to see if the rest of the family might enjoy it.

It might hard to watch it with young ones. Some of the questions might be difficult to answer. There is not much blood, but there is extreme violence. Especially towards the end on both seasons.

 

[Brian G Turner]

It might hard to watch it with young ones. Some of the questions might be difficult to answer. There is not much blood, but there is extreme violence. Especially towards the end on both seasons.

Okay, cheers for the warning - I'll make sure to finish season one by myself and make a decision on that.

 

[ctg]

It's here, available now at AMZ Prime TV and later on in other formats. Happy Binging for everyone who watches. I'll write a general review later on.

 

[ctg]

Third season was really depressing stuff to watch, and not for a long time I have felt physically sick for seeing the horrors Nazi occupation could have caused ... or would if let fascistic ideals raise again. There is a moment at end of the third season, where Himler's crazy ideals culminated against the Lady Liberty. Seeing it burning and shattered at the waters made me somewhat pissed off. Maybe the reason for it is because it's the symbol of freedom.

Thing is third isn't easy thing to watch after two seasons that weren't as ambitiously crazy as the portal technology explodes to viewers face in most macabre manner, with the Nazi leaders celebrating at the background on the success of making carnage.

If there is any hope it is the fact that the next season is most likely going to be the final one, because by the time it finishes the world has burned in atomic fire or the fascism has been toppled all over the world. I think it is really difficult status to achieve as the world has been conquered by the Third Reich and there is nobody to oppose them then the Japanese Imperium.

It is a difficult for me to write about the characters and their progression without spoiling the major events. It just seems to me that there wasn't that much of character growth as there was in the previous season and I can count only three who advanced at all during the course of this strangely addictive but also a slow paced season.

So, if you're going to watch, be warned that it is not going to be an easy watch and certainly not something you might want to watch with whole family.

 

[Al Jackson]

I must not keep up, I thought there was only to be 3 seasons, don't know where i got that idea!
Dick did plan sequels to the novel , but never wrote them. I wonder if he made notes? Since his daughter was a producer on the pilot , I am guessing she is still involved. Does she have any Dick notes. I mean my guess is that 98 percent of the show is made from whole cloth. Tho, one notes that all the stuff Dick wrote about the Nazis was descriptive , while the show brought it all on-stage. The conflict between Japan and Germany is the best part of the show.

 

[ctg]

I wonder if he made notes?

Yeah, if you read the AMZ prime notes, you'll see that he started the second novel but never got to finish it. According to the producers a lot of stuff you see in the third comes from that second unfinished novel.

The conflict between Japan and Germany is the best part of the show.

I really like the Japanese bits, after that the Neutral Zone is my second favourite. Whole third reich is the worst. They have amazing technological marvels, but all of that just get buried under the world dominated ideas. I honestly cheered when they shot mr H. I hope he doesn't survive to the next season.

 

[Al Jackson]

Yeah, if you read the AMZ prime notes, you'll see that he started the second novel but never got to finish it. According to the producers a lot of stuff you see in the third comes from that second unfinished novel.



I really like the Japanese bits, after that the Neutral Zone is my second favourite. Whole third reich is the worst. They have amazing technological marvels, but all of that just get buried under the world dominated ideas. I honestly cheered when they shot mr H. I hope he doesn't survive to the next season.

The show only uses the framework of the novel which has little action in it and is mostly 'inner' thoughts. I was really surprised the novel was picked up as a TV show even tho I knew they were going to jazz it up (eve knowing Dick's popularity ). They kept the parallel universe theme in the book but they sort of complexified it to the point I am not sure the show writers know what Dick's narrative was about.

 

[Dave]

I didn't see the plot reveal (about travellers between reality) at the end of the third season coming. It made sense though. They've lost a lot of the original characters now. If it continues into a fourth season then it will be quite different - much more science fiction. The plot has become the same as the later seasons of Sliders.

 

[ctg]

They've lost a lot of the original characters now. If it continues into a fourth season then it will be quite different - much more science fiction. The plot has become the same as the later seasons of Sliders.

To be frank, Timeless should have been like this series instead of them messing up every week with historical events. What they do in this one is far better use of historical placement then just trumping all the used things once again. From season to season they have grown characters and places, but I'm not sure about this latest development and if it's something PKD would have imagined happening in this universe.

I do get some of the points for why they would develop a natsi dimensional hopper as it would explain somethings, but in the other hand, it only terrifies and drives off viewers.

 

[BAYLOR]

The show only uses the framework of the novel which has little action in it and is mostly 'inner' thoughts. I was really surprised the novel was picked up as a TV show even tho I knew they were going to jazz it up (eve knowing Dick's popularity ). They kept the parallel universe theme in the book but they sort of complexified it to the point I am not sure the show writers know what Dick's narrative was about.

I read the book years a go, overall like the book but hated the ending.

 

[Al Jackson]

So … now I have seen seasons 2 and 3 of Man in a High Castle .
Gotta say, this is fairly sophisticated science fiction, in fact a bit rare on TV.
As a multiverse story I don't think it has ever been done before.
I thought season 2 did too much tap dancing , making time.
The only really interesting story is the conflict between Japan and Nazi Germany which is a logical extension of this alternate universe narrative.
Third season has introduced a super science device I did not see coming .... this has potential to lead to a logical conclusion to the whole story. They have a fourth season coming I hope it ends there!!

 

[ctg]

The only really interesting story is the conflict between Japan and Nazi Germany which is a logical extension of this alternate universe narrative.

It's all alternative history. I find the life in the mountain zone equally as interesting as what they show it in the SF or NY. What I don't like are the occupation forces, and natzis showing facism and no rules. They can kill anyone and get away with it. The conflict is nothing, because there hasn't really been conflict, only clashes, assassinations and empty threats.

Third season has introduced a super science device I did not see coming .... this has potential to lead to a logical conclusion to the whole story. They have a fourth season coming I hope it ends there!!

I don't like the what they did with the superscience device. Surely it's German, but it also has a potential to be a story breaking device. So yeah, let's hope they know how to finish it nicely at fourth ... if it gets commissioned.

 

[Dave]

Third season has introduced a super science device I did not see coming .... this has potential to lead to a logical conclusion to the whole story. They have a fourth season coming I hope it ends there!!

I don't like the what they did with the superscience device. Surely it's German, but it also has a potential to be a story breaking device. So yeah, let's hope they know how to finish it nicely at fourth ... if it gets commissioned.

As I said already, it simply turns the show into the latter Seasons of Sliders (after it moved to the sci-fi channel) when machines to travel between alternate universes were used by the very Nazi-like Kromaggs to attempt to conquer them all.

However, the final plot reveal in this Season; that it is only possible to travel to a universe in which your alternate self is dead, makes it very much more interesting scenario. For instance, as well as universes where Juliana's sister is not dead and John Smith's son is not dead, there will also be universes where Adolf Hitler is not dead. Anyone could come back.

The show's director, Director Daniel Percival has told Business Insider that the show has reached a point where the characters are in a cycle and “destined to replicate the patterns until [they] reach full understanding”. He hinted that there will be more moving between worlds in season four, and also that that ending has already been mapped out. So, I would assume that the story is heading to a conclusion of some sort.

 

[Al Jackson]

It's all alternative history. I find the life in the mountain zone equally as interesting as what they show it in the SF or NY. What I don't like are the occupation forces, and natzis showing facism and no rules. They can kill anyone and get away with it. The conflict is nothing, because there hasn't really been conflict, only clashes, assassinations and empty threats.



I don't like the what they did with the superscience device. Surely it's German, but it also has a potential to be a story breaking device. So yeah, let's hope they know how to finish it nicely at fourth ... if it gets commissioned.

My understanding there will be a 4th season.
One odd thing about the show , they hew close to this alternate universe being in the early 1960s, that is ok when in the USA but when in Berlin seems there should be some more advances in technology , after all they have supersonic trans Atlantic flight... tho things are more shiny some how there has not been much advance since the 1940s.

 

[Dave]

My understanding there will be a 4th season.

The show's director, Director Daniel Percival has told Business Insider that... there will be more moving between worlds in season four, and also that the ending has already been mapped out.

As for technology, I think they have it just right. The Cold War that the Germans have with the Japanese has brought the Atomic Bomb for the Japanese and the Parallel Universe 'sliding' Machine for the Germans. It has brought supersonic aircraft but these are all spin-offs from military development. Domestic technology, and developments such as fast-food hamburger outlets and electric guitar groups would not necessarily happen, nor would fashions be the same. The Nazis would favour the high German traditional styles, the leather jackets and the WMF steel look.

What I think they have missed is which side that the US and British scientists went to after the invasion. If we assume that the nuclear scientists have gone to the Japanese, since they have the bomb, then did the computer scientists also go there, and do the Japanese have working computers? If the British computer scientists went to Germany, then do they have computers? Germany will have all the rocket scientists that the US took away, but with computers they will not be able to reach space. Reaching space first and having intercontinental ballistic missile capability is probably much more significant than the actual payload they carry.

 

[Al Jackson]

What I think they have missed is which side that the US and British scientists went to after the invasion. If we assume that the nuclear scientists have gone to the Japanese, since they have the bomb, then did the computer scientists also go there, and do the Japanese have working computers? If the British computer scientists went to Germany, then do they have computers? Germany will have all the rocket scientists that the US took away, but with computers they will not be able to reach space. Reaching space first and having intercontinental ballistic missile capability is probably much more significant than the actual payload they carry.

Good questions. Well there was a lot of technology developed in WWII by the military that continued , they do have television at about the 1960 level. I think it would take a lot of imagination to figure out where at what level Nazi technology would be. In the novel the US never enters the war , Dick does not detail it but seems Germany is not devastated, we never find out what the British did , did they get some bombing in. Dick , I think, gives very thin outlines of what happened to the USSR and China. The show mentions Africa once … I don't think anything relating to England and Europe is ever covered?
Seems , on the show, it is implied that Nazi Germany has a vast empire world wide , not clear that even with a powerful central government Germany would ever have enough economic strength to control so much, Rome ran into the same problem.
Have to say Dick did set up the Germany vs Japan conflict in the novel and that is the most interesting part of the TV show, the American underground kind of runs as a side bar.
Dick had only two alternate universes going at the same time the TV show has many or at least 4.
I can't see how the series can be popular enough to go beyond 4 seasons.

 

[Al Jackson]

Four seasons and out. Long ago when I heard this was being made I thought "that's the last Dick story I thought would ever be made" . I think the novel is Dick's best , it did win a Hugo, at the same time it is a difficult double alternate universe story. The show 'action o fied' it. They took all the off stage stuff , in the novel, about the confrontation between Japan and Nazi German and put it on stage. This worked! The story about the American 'under ground' was lackluster and seemed to just go in a loop. The Grasshopper Lies Heavy was changed to a newsreel parallel universe , oddly, tho they have not followed up with it, four parallel universes! Thought seasons 2 and 3 the only interesting story is conspiracy of the Nazi's to take Japan's empire from them, this makes a lot of sense, even if a lot of really goofy things happen!!
Season 3 introduced a plot element that could indeed present a decent conclusion to the series, we shall see.
Season one ended , interestingly, on Dick's ending in the novel, which would have been a neat all in one story... they kind of hedged their bet … if they got only one season… and then got a 2nd and 3rd season which they have with imagination except for the 'American resistance' story which is very uneven.

 

[ctg]

The final season of The Man in the High Castle will be rocked by war and revolution. The Resistance becomes a full-blown rebellion, driven by Juliana Crain’s (Alexa Davalos) visions of a better world. A new Black insurgent movement emerges to fight the forces of Nazism and imperialism. As empires teeter, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido (Joel De La Fuente) will find himself torn between his duty to his country and the bonds of family. Meanwhile, Reichsmarschall John Smith (Rufus Sewell) will be drawn towards the portal the Nazis have built to another universe, and the tantalizing possibility of stepping through a gateway to the path not taken​

The Man In The High Castle final season trailer rocks the world