JCC The Man in the High Castle (Amazon Prime series and the novel by Philip K Dick)

So I've always loved alternate reality stories, and while fiction on the subject runs the gamut from good-to-cheesy, The Man in the High Castle remains one of my personal favorites. My father gave me an original copy of the book back when I was in high school, and I was hooked.

The new series, Season 3 of which just launched on Amazon Prime, is IMHO an outstanding work which captures not only the horror of what a post-Axis-WWII-victory world would look like, but also does a deep dive into the cultural consequences of living in a Nazified and Japanese-occupied America. Judaism is a crime in the East (which is occupied by Germany), whereas Americans have more freedom but are still second-class citizens in their own country in the West (which is under the authority of Imperial Japan).

Anyone else hooked on this show? Let's discuss!

 

i watched the first six episodes or so. i can't remember exactly. i was incredibly hooked by the pilot episode but i thought it dramatically fell off after that. maybe i'll give it another go at some point.

 

I keep thinking I should watch it out of nostalgia for my childhood. My mother read me stories every night before bed, but I kept pestering my dad to read. One night when I was six or seven, my dad finally gave in. "I've got just the thing," he said.

 

I think there's already a thread on this (though it's not very active lately).

I watched the first two seasons last year after subscribing to Prime and thought it to be the best, most engaging series I've ever seen. I'm considering either to binge watch them again or simply watching the special "recap" video before diving back in for Season 3.

 

Read the book a few years ago, and enjoyed it a lot. Started watching the series, all was good till about ep 5. After that, I felt the plot grounded to a halt, ran out of material from the book to adapt, and just kicked its heels for the rest of the season.

Still haven't gone back for season 2.

 

My issue with the show is that most if not all of the young protagonist characters are either boring or irritating as hell.

Season 2 helped deal with this by increasing the focus given to Tagomi, Kido, and Smith, but this had 2 unfortunate consequences:
1. I end up watching a show where the only major characters I find interesting and enjoy watching are middle aged Nazis/Imperial Japanese officials/Imperial Japanese secret police.

2. The parallel world videotape stuff mostly showing up in the young peoples' storylines (in Season 1, though in Season 2 it became mostly a Juliana thing), while politics, spy-games and rising German/Japanese tensions are mostly the domain of the more interesting older characters has led to me not really caring at all about the former and sorta wishing it'd just be dropped entirely. The Tagomi alternate universe parts are alright, but I only really like them because I like him. I've realized I'd probably prefer a more normal alternate history show, with the sort of things we see in the Smith+Kido storylines as the main focus. The resistance would still be involved but would be doing more actual resistance stuff (both morally sound and otherwise) and less videotape-chasing.

I haven't looked at Season 3 yet, perhaps it will change my view. Best case scenario it has a quality leap as significant as the one from the first season to the second. Perhaps they'll even manage to get me to care about the alternate universe stuff.

 

I don't find the characters boring at all. I'm extremely picky when it comes to television series like this; and if I didn't think much of them or the story I'd have stopped watching it almost immediately.

 

I think so far, the third season has made every character far more interesting. The underlying theme seems to be how knowledge of a world where fascism lost is affecting those in the world where it dominates, and how each main character is dealing with it.

It’s also more plot-driven than Season 2, but with enough emphasis on character to keep me hooked. I’m almost through it all now.