I haven’t yet watched any of the other new Amazon pilots, but if they are as well done as The Man in the High Castle Amazon can really develop into a viable programming alternative.
Hopefully, this show gets picked up as I’m very anxious to see what they do with it (I have not read the book, but now I will eventually - sooner if the show doesn’t get picked up, later if it does).
I encourage all to check it out and submit feedback to Amazon in order to help it along.
I haven’t yet watched any of the other new Amazon pilots, but if they are as well done as The Man in the High Castle Amazon can really develop into a viable programming alternative.
According to the AV Club, they weren’t. As for TMITHC, I have to say I was not liking at all until about halfway through. They were not being at all subtle about the “America under the jackboot of fascism” angle, unlike the book, and indeed most of the other themes of the book, and Dick’s trademark ontological ambiguity, seemed to be ignored. But by the end I’d been mostly won over. I’d certainly like to see where they go with it, though I hope it doesn’t turn into a soap. The nature of Dick’s stories is that reality is unstable, so the situations tend to lead inexorably to a resolution one way or another. Stringing the story out would be a real disservice.
I dunno, the point of TMITC is that alternatives are always possible. And its not like the book ends with some bang-up, definitive plot conclusion. I don’t see why they can’t keep it going indefinitely.
Speaking of alternate histories, apparently another one of the pilots is Point of Honor, about a wealthy Southern family who are so pure in their belief about State’s Rights that they free all their slaves and then go to war against the evil Yankees.
I’m sure they can keep it going indefinitely. I just don’t want them to. It’s true there isn’t a definitive conclusion to the book, but at the same time the situation is untenable - the main characters know/think their reality is false, but we the reader know the alternative reality is also false, at least if our reality is not. It’s not quite the total epistemic collapse of say, Ubik or A Scanner Darkly, but it’s also not something you’d want to pin an an ongoing story on (unless it’s an anthology series I suppose).
Yeah I thought the pilot was interesting and decent, but it certainly wasn’t close to the book. More like “inspired by” the novel. Diego
See, the last step is where where you make an unnecessary assumption. : ) Our reality is just as false, or true, as TMITHC’s. There is a reality where people look at our world and say “Holy crap, that place is totally screwed up” just as we do about the world of TMITHC.
Well, yes, obviously that’s where I (and Dick) was going with that. The point being that at the end of the book, either the character’s universe is a false reality, or the reader’s is, or both. That’s not exactly a promising basis for serialised network TV style reset buttons. I’d rather they just built up to that revelation and left it.
I watched Point of Honor. It was grotesque in its attempt to have its cake and eat it too.
The Man in High Castle was definitely the best of the pilots I’ve watched.
Spotnitz can be very hit and miss with his TV shows, but I liked it. Though I wonder how much had to do with the fact that I literally grew up down the street from where some of these scenes were filmed. That was cool.
I agree with this. This was the only show that seems sustainable. I can’t see Billy Zane in Belize going anywhere and the supermodel comedy was a real one trick pony. If I had to choose, I’d go for the New Yorker magazine - I found that the most interesting of all of them.
Watched this, thought is was very good
Watch the british version of mad dogs, or at least the first season. It didn’t drag on as much, and had british A-list TV actors for the most part, rather than these (to me) no-name washed up dregs.
I watched this a few weeks ago, and I’ve gotta say, I’m surprised by the reactions here, especially this one. I though the show was very faithful to the book, or at least events the book talked about. As the book opens the couple in San Francisco have already broken up, and she’s already in Colorado. The Truck Driver is either already there on on his way, too. The show basically uses the history set up in the book to show what the state of the world is- they’re following that age-old maxim of visual media, show, don’t tell.
The most interesting actual change they made was changing the book-within-the-book into a film for the show, specifically, into newsreels that appear to be from our timeline. I see why they did that (again, it’s better to show the audience what they characters are seeing than have them just talk about a book), but in MitHC the “Grasshopper…” starts out seeming like the author has a window into our timeline, but as it progresses, you find out that the timeline of the “Grasshopper…” diverges significantly from ours. Sure, the Allies win WWII, but there’s a bunch of other changes to our ‘real’ history. I wonder if they’ll tackle that in the show. It would be a big thing to leave out, but given the route they’ve taken, but I wonder if they think creating fake-real footage would be too subtle for the audience. I’d love to see where they take it, though. If they do turn this into a full series, I’m on board.
Amazon has greenlit the show to series (along with Mad Dog and The New Yorker Presents) and was Amazon’s most watched pilot ever.
— Alan
Picked up for a full season.
Awesome news!
Talk about a slow release schedule! I am gonna have to re-watch the first episode also!
Well, as I’m sure you know, the first episode was just a pilot to see if there would even be more episodes. The full first season will be released November 20.
Yeah, this is a preview for this weekend only, so if you don’t catch eps 1 and 2 this weekend, I think you have to wait till November 20th.