Well, if you can read between the lines about Amazon’s clashes with Spotnitz, apparently it won’t make that big of a difference if he wasn’t around…
— Alan
Season 2 trailer
Debut date for Season 2 is Dec. 16th, which btw is the day Rogue One opens.
Moved to December 11th now.
It’s up! It’s up!
And I can’t watch it yet, as I work this weekend. Saving it for Monday night, as I have Tuesday off. Shit, the gf won’t be here until next Friday, and she’ll kill me if I watch it without her.
Okay, next Friday for me.
I watched the first episode of the new season today, and I liked it, but I feel like I needed a quick refresher on some of the highlights of the last season, because they really just throw you into the deep end, maybe assuming you just re-watched the last few episodes of the first season. I thought there’d be a “Previously on…” segment or something.
I’m watching this YouTube video to try to catch up/remember some stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3QFDWToeSA
One thing that annoys me (and though I read the novel a million years ago in my 20’s, I don’t remember if Dick did the same thing) is that they keep talking about the Greater Nazi Reich, which is ahistorical-- the Third Reich called itself “das Großdeutsche Reich” or Greater German Reich from 1943 till Germany’s defeat in the spring of 1945 (from 1871 to 1943 its official name on maps was “Deutsches Reich” or “German Empire”) so there’s no reason to believe they would have changed that. The story makes it perfectly clear what particular political bent these particular German invaders have, so what’s the point of the change? Also, the radio marketing on NPR for the second season talks about “an alternate history in which the Allies lost the war and the US is occupied by Nazi Germany and ‘ImperialIST’ (aargh) Japan.” I yell at the radio every time “It’s Imperial Japan, idiots!” :-
Anyway, these minor niggles detract only slightly from what’s otherwise been a great ride. And they actually fix the horrible truncation of “Edelweiss” from the first season, thank goodness.
EDIT: I could have also done without an obviously Chinese-American actor (Tzi Ma) playing the role of a Japanese general. His accent was all wrong. OTOH, Tagomi is perfectly cast (and is obviously really of Japanese ancestry), and even Kido (the chief inspector), while played by a Filipino-American actor, makes a real effort with the accent and body language.
Having just entered the 21st century, we watched the pilot last night. tlr walked out after a few minutes because OMG! Nazis!. I thought it was good, but clearly more inspired by Dick’s fiction than an adaptation. I also thought changing The Grasshopper Lies Heavy from a book to a film came awfully close to pandering.
That first trailer for S2 reminded me of the Bellamy salute
Who’s tlr?
The funny part about that “meme” is that the text describes the hand being held with the palm up, yet all those kids are doing the Nazi salute (palm down).
BTW, I’ve gotten through the third episode (that ending!) and while all the principals from last season shine (and the story is still good) i was sad to see that Tzi Ma continues to appear. He’s a good actor, no question, and I’ve enjoyed his work in other stuff, but he looks and sounds COMPLETELY wrong for this role. (I knew lots of Japanese people in my younger years, and had a Japanese dorm mate for a while, so I have some sense of how they sound when speaking English.) I have no idea what the casting director was thinking. I doubt that Frank Spotnitz guy would have been OK with that pick. It takes me right out of the suspension of disbelief every time.
It’s ambiguous if upward applied to pointing or facing, but every photo I’ve seen of it has palms facing the floor, so I assume that’s correct.
tlr is Mrs. tgb (teh lovely Ruth)
Papageno -
I think what you have to keep in mind is that any number of things could have transpired in the years since the war. The ‘fact’ that we are in an alternate reality can account for a lot - both the German Reich and Imperial Japan prevailed and are not terminated circa '45. And that time has gone by; it’s in the mid 1960’s or so isn’t it? Things may naturally have evolved esp. since both countries have inherited/occupied a great deal of the globe I would think.
But I am a bit like you; hate it when people who are trying so hard to get all the details right seem to get it wrong.
It seems weird to describe the show as one that’s trying hard to get the details right considering it describes a world which never existed, and when even the alternative “true” reality in the novel/show doesn’t correspond exactly to ours. It’s not like PK Dick was trying hard to get the details right.
For Canadians:
Very odd. This show is filmed in Canada. It is an Amazon Prime “original”. Yet us Canadians cannot watch Season 2 of this show on the Canadian version of Amazon Prime Video.
Am I missing something?
OK, not the best terminology then. But PKD and this show’s writers all are trying hard to give us consistent and lush details; things that make ‘sense’ in the context of this alternate reality. For example I enjoy the distinctions between how Imperial Japan governs the Americans in the west versus how the German Reich governs the east. I mean, they’re not just making it up as they go along but they aren’t perfect either.
I’m really impressed by the actor who plays Chief Inspector Kido. He has the gestures and the accent down.
I’m watching the fifth episode–what is up with Tagomi-san’s visions of our American 1962?
Also, doesn’t Obergruppenführer John Smith’s older daughter look a little multiethnic to be the daughter of a Nazi? Just sayin’.
Just finished Season 2. A lot better and tighter than Season 1. And Season 1 actually had you sorta rooting for Hitler at one point, which is insane.
It does suffer from having a few too many characters, and it doesn’t help that the main triumvirate of Juliana/Frank/Joe aren’t even the most interesting parts of the show. But I’ve loved Bella Heathcote for awhile now, and she’s a wonderful addition.
Spoilers for the entire season below
[spoiler]To the show’s credit, they finally get rid of one of the main troika. Frank was sorta aimless for a while now, and that stupid “We Only Have X Number of Days to Make Those Fake Cufflinks” plot was almost comical considering he was also rescuing civilians, stealing explosives, and getting laid on the side.
Speaking of comical, while Bella Heathcoat is smoke and one of the most beautiful actresses alive, the sex scene in the final episode was hilariously bad.
It’ll be interesting to see where Season 3 goes. Hitler is dead. Himmler is probably taking over. Juliana is being hunted by everyone. Joe is in an interesting place; he’ll probably get pardoned because he helped Smith at the end, but wonder if his hot girlfriend remains interested now that he’s lost all power.[/spoiler]
Season 2 was fantastic. Love where this show is going…The world building they are attempting is great and ambitious. Season 2 starts a bit slow but after a few episodes in it all comes together and you see how they are developing as a show. It pays off.
Agreed. There were a few rough patches in season 1 but Season 2 is confident and assured and contains very little fat or gristle (except for, of all things, the sex scenes, where it felt like someone from Amazon gave them a quota and they shoehorned them in.)
It’s such a pleasure to watch an intelligent science fiction show about human issues and real stakes and actual drama after the nonstop puzzle-driven fuckery that was Westworld. TMITHC may have a fraction of the budget and starpower of a Westworld, and it might look on the outside more Sci-Fi Channel than HBO, but I cared more about what happened to the people on this show than I ever cared about what happened on the mash-up of red herrings, anagrams, game in-jokes, and Freshman Seminar On Consciousness that Westworld ended up being. Who would have thought I’d find the problems of Nazi housewives so engrossing?
There are still a few characters with actors who aren’t quite up to the material (namely Joe and Frank) but the actress playing Juliana hit a whole new level, and Mr. Tagomi, Kido, and Smith were outstanding as before. The worldbuilding continues to be great (e.g. rich Nazi youth embracing the 1960s!) And there’s a complex plot where all the pieces actually do come together nicely in the end (unlike, again, Westworld) so you get “But of course!” moments when the pieces snap together - for example, the real reason Smith treats Juliana the way he does, which is simple and obvious but you (well, I) don’t think about until the show points it out.
Not sure what they’ll do with Season 3 now that they’re out of book material, but I’m game to find out.
Postscript: Oh man. While re-reading this thread, I found this posted by January 2015 me:
As it turns out, that reality is January 2015 looking at the world of January 2017. I’m gonna have to get me some yarrow stalks and see if I can meditate my way back there.
Watched the first 3 episodes of season 2, very good so far. :)
I really wasn’t sure what would happen up at the fishing cabin!
New showrunner, too - Eric Overmyer, who’s done a bunch of work with David Simon. (Writer on Homicide and a couple of episodes of The Wire, co-creator and writer on Treme, consulting producer on all of the above.)
Halfway through Season 1. The triggering is real, but I really like the show. Completely different animal from the book, as I think it should be.