I have known about this series for several years and its premise always looked interesting to me but I never decided to sit down and give it a proper watch. This is one of the main exclusive series from Amazon Prime Video and so far it has 4 seasons.
I finished watching season 1 yesterday and I must say it is an entertaining show. The story is about an alternative past where the second world war wasn't won by the allies but by the axis powers. As a result of this, the United States is divided into 3 regions, the easter part controlled by the Nazis, there is a neutral zone in the middle, and the western part is controlled by the Imperial Japanese.
The people living inside these 2 territories are extremely oppressed, they don't have any freedoms and are in constant fear of the Japanese and German totalitarians. Life seems to be pretty much hopeless until one day, by accident, a woman who ends up being the main actress of the show, receives a mysterious film. The story takes place in the 60s so the film was stored on a videotape.
At first, we don't know why these videotapes are important but members of the resistance as well as the totalitarian government have a lot of interest in taking control over all of these mysterious videotapes. By the end of episode one, we will see the actual content of one of these films and it turns out that what this film is showing is either fake or impossible.
The film contained very realistic fictional scenes of the war, I say fictional because it is obvious that in this series the axis powers won the second world war. From this point, the show makes it clear there is also a bit of scifi in the plot. It is not just drama and war but an important scifi undertone that will become more and more important as the story advances. The scifi part gets absolutely confirmed in the very last scene of the last episode of season 1.
The acting is excellent and actors portraying members of the totalitarian governments do a great job achieving a very evil look. For the most part, this is a story about misfortunes that happen to a specific couple, especially the woman, but the plot gets bigger and the number of people involved increases with time. Conspiracies will naturally arise and the show also takes the time to explore the personal side of a few characters.
This is a great show for people who enjoy dramas involving war. As I mentioned before, the scifi element is there but it is not properly explored in the first season. There are just glimpses and bits of information about this part of the story, if it wasn't for 3 scenes in the entire first season it wouldn't even be considered a scifi show. I guess everything regarding the mysterious films and the crazy final scene will be explored in the following seasons.
The best
- Excellent acting, especially in the villains.
- Interesting mix of genres involving drama, historic war, and scifi.
The worst
- Certain events were too unlikely to happen, some characters have very bad luck.
More information: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1740299/ Review: AAA In numbers: 8/10