schornstephan

6

Review by schornstephan

BlockedParentSpoilers2017-10-03T03:23:24Z

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-The Two Universes-
The storyline with the two parallel universes is, in my opinion, a story killer.
You lose the feeling of "This could have gotten real!" as soon as you see "our world" is still there. It would have been a lot more interesting and threatening if our would wasn't there anymore.

If you take the multiverse approach, then it's no surprise there are a few universes where the Germans won...

"Our universe" is only used by Tagomi to analyze the errors he's made in his life. Or in his other life. You don't need a German New York and a Japanese San Francisco to do a story like this. It's almost completely unrelated to the escalating conflict between Japan and Germany.
In another life... Even Katy Perry sang about that.

OK, Tagomis visits to the other universe prevented World War III because he brought the Nuke tape. Nevertheless, this appealed to me like an excuse for his lengthy visits to our universe rather than a surprising twist.

-Errors-
I'm German. And I'm annoyed by the bad accents most of the actors have when they speak German. Aren't there any Germans in the USA who can teach the actors a proper pronounciation?
Just get a better pronounciation! I don't ask you to learn our grammar ;-)

And many words and names are just wrong.
In Germany, the Nazis renamed each and every little village that had a French name. But the German part of America is called "Greater Nazi Reich"? It shouldn't have an English name at all. And the Nazis never called themselves Nazis. If the German America had been an (more or less) independent country with an own name, it would have been called something like "Deutsch Amerika" or just "West Amerika".

And the Nazis in this series often greet each other with "Sieg Heil" when it should be "Heil Hitler".
Actually, I doubt they would use "Sieg Heil" at this point at all. "Sieg" means victory, they have already won. No need to invoke the victory anymore.

There are more errors like these in this series which a historian could point out better than I can.
But some of them already suffice to take the "realism" out of the series.

-The Interesting Part-
Nevertheless, there are also some things in this series that are remarkable. John Smith's story actually is very interesting. And Rufus Sewell's acting is great. What happens in his family is way more gripping than Juliana Crane's desoriented search for the truth about the tapes.

In general, I like multiple universe stories very much. But in this case, I just don't.

A series just about John Smith being a Nazi who's betrayed his ancestors ideals would have been more compelling. A look inside the life and mind of a terrible opportunist who isn't even sure whether to kill his son for the Reich or not. A series with a truly bad person in the centre. That would've been it!

Nevertheless, the way the story is made, John could at one point meet his "other self" from our universe. This would also be interesting and I bet this would be a great episode! But I think the first to meet herself will be with Juliana, which should be boring, because they don't differ that much in the two universes.

-Summary-
2/3 of the series miss to show where fascism leads to. These parts deal with shenanigans about parallel worlds (the tapes and Tagomi are just boring) and already-seen-on-TV resistance stories.
The stories of Frank, Juliana and Joe could have happened in any occupied country. Just exchange "misterious tapes" for "military secrets" and you get quite an ordinary war story you've already seen a Gazillion times.

The other third is absolutely worth watching, new and very, very dark.
John Smith is someone you haven't already seen on TV.

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