Entertainment
Netflix Adding A Fantastic Alternate Reality Series Where Germany Won World War 2
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
It will always be a little strange to see a high-profile original series move from one streaming service to another, but as more and more discover the real money is in licensing out their productions versus streaming them themselves, it’s going to become more common. Amazon’s deal with Netflix involving the MGM catalog includes not only all of the James Bond films, but also 2015’s The Man in the High Castle, an alternate-history take on the world in which the Allies lost World War 2. The four seasons series is coming to Netflix on March 11 where again, the Netflix effect is going to turn the decade old show into another hit.
An Alternate World Where The Allies Lost World War 2
The Man in the High Castle might be worth the effort. The series loosely adapts the book by Philip K. Dick, very loosely, the two take place in the same world but the book goes further into mysticism, philosophy, and presents a far scarier world where the Nazi control of half the world has been completely normalized. By contrast, the television adaptation has a significantly larger cast with more of a focus on individualism, depicting a far more divided world, and it includes a guy by the name of Adolf Hitler.
The less you know about The Man in the High Castle when you go into it, the more you’ll be able to appreciate the wild twists and turns that the dystopian story takes in a world where no one is safe. It starts off with Joe Blake (Luke Kleintank) in New York, offering to drive a truck into the Neutral Zone (the Rockies) for the Resistance, while on the opposite coast, under rule of the Japanese, Juliana Crane (Alexa Davalos) is escorting a box of film to the Neutral Zone for the Resistance. Those films show a different world, one where the Allies won World War 2. Our world.
A Decade Later Man In The High Castle Is Going To Be A Hit
As far as hooks go, it’s a pretty good one. Fans and critics agreed that the first season was, at the time, a high point for an original streaming series weith a 95 percent fresh rating. The Man in the High Castle wobbles a bit under the weight of the story, and its cast of dozens of characters (including Rufus Sewell as an American officer who accepted the Third Reich’s offer to join them) to keep track of, but it levels out towards the end and finishes strong. Don’t worry, there’s no sudden cancelation cliffhanger here.
It will be interesting to see the response to The Man in the High Castle a few months after Peacemaker Season 2 tackled a similar plot. What if the Nazis won World War 2 is one of the most common thought experiments in the world of alternate history, but it’s never been done on the same scale and production budget as it was in the Amazon original series. On March 11, thanks to the power of Netflix, it will feel like the show, over a decade old at this point, is being discovered for the first time. Stay away from social media to avoid the spoilers, but more importantly, the inevitable “hot takes” that will do nothing but raise your blood pressure.