There has been a strange lack of hype around Masters of the Air. It is a huge, epic second world war drama, more than a decade in the making, filled with matinee-idol movie stars. It follows Band of Brothers and The Pacific, but moves the story from land and water to the sky. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks are executive producers and Dee Rees and Cary Fukunaga are among its directors. Yet it is has arrived quietly and politely.
Why? It’s on Apple TV+, for one. Perhaps, too, it’s a casualty of an oversaturated age, in which too much television has been produced. I suspect the buzz is about to make a late appearance, though, because Masters of the Air is truly fantastic television. Over nine episodes, it follows the American men of the 100th bomb group as they undertake perilous aerial missions. As Barry Keoghan’s Lt Curtis Biddick has it – and picture this in an old-time New York accent – they have to “knock one off and drop bombs on those Nazi fucks”.
