By rights, Masters of the Air, which begins airing next week, should probably be considered the TV event of the year. Why? Let us count the ways: it’s the follow-up to giant second world war epics Band of Brothers and The Pacific, two jewels in TV’s golden age crown that expanded the reach, ambition and budgets of prestige television (and, along with 24, arguably ushered in the TV box set age to boot); it’s produced by no less than Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks; it costs an estimated $250m – not quite Lord of the Rings money, but way beyond the balance sheets of most modern TV shows – and looks like it; it’s long-awaited, having been on development slates since 2012; and it stars a planet-straddlingly famous actor in Austin Butler, alongside a deep bench of next-generation A-listers (Barry Keoghan, Callum Turner, Ncuti Gatwa, Bel Powley).
Case closed, then. Except – can the TV event of the year be the TV event of the year when you’re not sure whether anyone will actually watch it? Because Masters of the Air is on Apple TV+, a streamer that still remains an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a lovely Jony Ive-designed smartphone shell.
