‘Masters of the Air’ series review: Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks’ World War II epic is a long-format masterpiece

Pause halfway into Masters of the Air, Apple TV+’s gargantuan 9-episode epic, and the word you might be hunting for is tenacity, a quality so impressive and hence so rare to find these days. It follows the story of the 100th Bomb Group of the United States Eighth Air Force in 1943, as they take on the unthinkable job of bombing targets in Nazi Germany, all the while taking on the tyranny of anti-aircraft bombs and Nazi fighters on Messerschmitt Bf 109s. If that feeling draws you to hesitatingly remember the anxiety of the Omaha Beach sequence in Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks would take that in great stride. Masters of the Air Creators: John Shiban and John Orloff Executive producers: Steven Spielberg, Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks Cast: Austin Butler, Callum Turner, Anthony Boyle, Barry Keoghan, Ncuti Gatwa and more Episodes: 9 Runtime: 50-77 minutes Storyline: Members of the 100th Bomb Group of the United States Eighth Air Force risk imminent death as they take on the gargantuan task of bombing targets in Nazi Germany in 1943 What fascinates one the most is how you find characters, played by A-listers, enter, exit and re-enter based on where their fate takes them, making the whole affair more about the collective group than individuals. And though the series shows how the barbarity of their actions rests heavily on the consciousness of these soldiers as well, it’s baffling how, in the guise of showing the horrors of the Holocaust, the writing leans towards making it all about American pride and why they had to do what they did — a declaration nobody asked of it and a justification of the 1940s that 2024 doesn’t bother itself with.