Amazon Instant Prime – TV Series
Amazon Studio
Directed by: David Semel
Written by: Philip K. Dick, Emma Frost, Frank Spotnitz
Executive Producers: David Semel, Frank Spotnitz, Ridley Scott
Starring: Rufus Sewell, Luke Kleintank, Steve Byers, Alexa Davalos
Date of Release: Out Now!

 

The success rate of Philip K. Dick projects brought to the screen seems to be in the ratio of 1 to, well, the rest do not seem memorable and even that 1, Blade Runner, owes more to its success as a cult favorite than an instantaneous, off the starting blocks, box-office smash in say the vacuous cash arena of the likes of say Jurassic World.

So to get behind another Philip K. Dick adaptation a person might have to be either very foolish or very courageous. But if you add in an old hand at the Philip K. Dick adaptation road, like one of the Executive Producers has, Ridley Scott, due to unleash Blade Runner 2 on an unsuspecting public and still gratefully acknowledged for bringing Blade Runner to the silver screen back in 1982, then there is a sense of pedigree, of care for the source material and its arrival in the bear pit world of television series.

And it is courage first and foremost, of the writers, the actors and production team in The Man In The High Castle, shining through every second of screen time. Adapted from Hugo Award-winning Philip K. Dick book of the same name, those production values are high and cinematic in the cleanness of design. There are no visible joins in the SFX. Aircraft aficionados may wince at German supersonic Concorde but it only raised a knowing smile on my face. A sort of European in-joke, if you will.

The Man In The High Castle sticks closely to its source material, set in 1962 in the USA, Germany and Japan have won World War Two. Both victorious powers have split the USA between them and have been happy with the status quo since WW2 ended in 1952. However, Hitler is a doddery old man, hiding the onset of Alzheimer’s disease from public view. Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Erwin Rommel conspire amongst themselves to who the next leader of Nazi Party will be. There is a strong indication the result of this contest will be another war. And, as one character points out: The Nazi’s have dropped the nuclear bomb once; they will do it again. The Japanese rulers are also aware of Germany seeking to control all of the good old USA too.

In The Man In The High Castle all the Nazi Party themes are present as well. The ‘Final Solution’ is still an ongoing policy and anyone considered disabled or mentally defiant is taken to hospital burnt. Nazi iconography blends in with the 1960s Americana backdrop with disturbing ease and all credit to the series designers for that piece of creepiness. The Nazi-controlled part of the USA is a police state and the Japanese held territories seem serene as long as you are not deemed an enemy of that state either. To that end the Japanese occupying force appears more like the iron fist in the velvet glove, where the Nazi Party are just the iron fist. Which insightfully tests the audience’s sense of good monster, bad monster. And it is a light touch too but a cleverly posed conundrum all the same.

The Man In The High Castle a taught and tense drama, fuelled with paranoia and a totalitarianism equal, if not surpassing, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. And yet that is not all.

In this alternate history, Philip K. Dick drops something much more powerful than nuclear weapons, much stronger than ideologies based on obedience or death. Philip K. Dick gives the resistance fighters something of an anomaly to deal with. Actor Alexa Davalos character is informed, by her soon to be arrested boyfriend, the historical inconsistency she holds comes directly from The Man In The High Castle. But it must be fake.

If you are a Philip K. Dick fan you need to here, if you aren’t you need to be here too. Why? Well. Support imagination; support, not the mainstream and its ho-hum television series and endless derivative characters and derivative plots. Support The Man In The High Castle. At no point will you be disappointed.

You will though, be captivated.

Reviewer: Steve Hooker