The Man in the High Castle (TV series)
| The Man in the High Castle | |
|---|---|
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| Genre |
Alternate history Science fiction Thriller |
| Based on |
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick |
| Written by | Frank Spotnitz |
| Directed by | David Semel |
| Starring |
Alexa Davalos Rupert Evans Luke Kleintank DJ Qualls Joel de la Fuente Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa Rufus Sewell |
| Opening theme | "Edelweiss", performed by Jeanette Olsson |
| Composer(s) |
Henry Jackman Dominic Lewis |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 1 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
Ridley Scott Frank Spotnitz Christian Baute Isa Dick Hackett Stewart Mackinnon Christopher Tricarico |
| Producer(s) |
Michael Cedar Jean Higgins Jordan Sheehan David W. Zucker |
| Editor(s) | Kathrynn Himoff |
| Location(s) |
Seattle Monroe, Washington |
| Cinematography | James Hawkinson |
| Running time | 61 minutes |
| Production company(s) |
Amazon Studios Scott Free Productions Electric Shepherd Productions Headline Pictures Picrow |
| Distributor | Amazon.com |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Amazon Instant Video |
| Original run | January 15, 2015 – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
The Man in the High Castle is an American alternate history television series produced by Amazon Studios. The series is based on the 1962 novel of the same name by American science fiction author Philip K. Dick. The story is an alternate history of the world in which the Axis powers won World War II. The United States has been divided into three parts: The Japanese puppet state of the Pacific States of America, which comprises the former United States west of the Rocky Mountains; a German puppet state that comprises the eastern half of the former United States; and a neutral zone that acts as a buffer between the two areas, called the Rocky Mountain States.
The pilot debuted on January 15, 2015[1] and as a pilot was Amazon's "most-watched since the original series development program began." On February 18, 2015, it was announced that it has been picked up for a season.[2]
Synopsis
The central characters are Juliana Crain, Ed McCarthy, and Nobusuke Tagomi, and the series takes place in 1962.
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Juliana Crain is a San Francisco woman whose half-sister Trudy has just been killed almost in front of her by Japanese security forces going to arrest her. Just before she dies, she hands Juliana a film reel that contains a series of faux news clips that depict an alternate history in which the Allies won World War II and Germany and Japan were defeated. The film is entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, and is part of a series of similar newsreels said to have been created by someone referred to as "The Man in the High Castle". Juliana believes the newsreel reflects some sort of alternate reality, and that it is part of some kind of larger truth about how the world should be; her boyfriend, Frank Frink (who keeps his Jewish roots hidden in order to avoid extradition and death at the hands of the Nazis), believes that the news reel was created entirely from the imagination of The Man in the High Castle for his own reasons, and has no reflection on real-life events. Juliana learns Trudy was carrying the film to Canon City, Colorado, in the Rocky Mountain States, where she was going to meet someone. Juliana decides to travel there in Trudy's place, to find out what her half-sister's mission was. When she arrives in Canon City, she encounters Joe Blake.
Joe Blake is a 27 year old New Yorker who seeks out the resistance in order to volunteer to help them, purportedly as an effort to continue his patriotic father's legacy. However, he is secretly a double-agent working for the Nazis. At the instigation of the resistance, he agrees to drive a truck full of "coffee-makers" to Canon City from New York, where he will make contact with another resistance member. In Canon City, he discovers what the truck he is driving conceals—a copy of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Later, he enters a diner and befriends Juliana Crane, who has been waiting there in hopes of meeting with the person set to meet with Trudy. Meanwhile, in New York, the resistance men Joe Blake met with are seized and tortured to death by the Nazis, headed by Obergruppenführer John Smith, played by Rufus Sewell. Though the resistance members do not talk, the Nazis already know that the truck dispatched by the resistance is going to Canon City, and why, which hints that it might be a trap.
Nobusuke Tagomi is a minor Japanese official in San Francisco. He meets in secret with Nazi official Rudolph Wegener, who is traveling incognito as Swedish businessman Victore Baynes. Tagomi and Wegener are concerned about the power vacuum that will open up when Reichsführer Adolf Hitler dies or is forced for health reasons to step down. Wegener explains that Hitler's successor will want to use the Reich's nuclear bombs against Japan in order to gain control over the rest of the former United States from the Japanese. Currently, however, Japan and the Third Reich are engaged in a cold war full of tension but no open warfare.
Cast
Main
- Alexa Davalos as Juliana Crain, a young woman from San Francisco who is outwardly happy living under Japanese control; she has become an expert in Aikido and is friendly with Japanese people living in San Francisco. Her mother harbors hatred of the Japanese, though, as they killed Juliana's father during the war.
- Rupert Evans as Frank Frink, Juliana's boyfriend. Frink works in a factory creating fake pre-war antiques that are prized by Japanese collectors, while on his own time he creates artistically brilliant original jewelry. When Juliana vanishes just after the police kill her sister, Frank is violently taken into custody, which is particularly dangerous since he is secretly of Jewish ancestry, a crime punishable by death.
- Luke Kleintank as Joe Blake, a new recruit to the underground American resistance who is a double agent secretly working for the SS under Obergruppenführer John Smith. He transports a copy of the forbidden film The Grasshopper Lies Heavy to the neutral Rocky Mountain States as part of his mission to infiltrate the American resistance.
- DJ Qualls as Ed McCarthy, who works in a factory in San Francisco with Frank Frink, creating fake antiques that are purchased by Japanese tourists eager to possess a piece of American history from its glory days.
- Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Nobusuke Tagomi, a minor official at the Japanese embassy in San Francisco.
- Rufus Sewell as John Smith, a ruthless SS Obergruppenführer investigating the Resistance in New York.
Episodes
| No. in series |
No. in season |
Title | Directed by | Written by | Release date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "Pilot" | David Semel | Frank Spotnitz and Howard Brenton | January 15, 2015[1] |
Background
The show has been in development for a number of years at a number of venues.
In 2010, it was announced that the BBC would co-produce a four-part TV adaptation of The Man in the High Castle for BBC One together with Headline Pictures, FremantleMedia Enterprises and Scott Free Films. Ridley Scott, who directed Blade Runner, a loose adaptation of another Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, was to act as executive producer of the adaptation by Howard Brenton.[3]
On February 11, 2013, Variety reported that SyFy was adapting the book as a four-part miniseries, with Ridley Scott and Frank Spotnitz as executive producers, co-produced with Scott Free Prods., Headline Pictures and Electric Shepherd Prods.[4]
On October 1, 2014, Amazon.com began filming the pilot episode in Roslyn, Washington,[5] for a new television drama to be aired on their Prime web video streaming service.[6] This has been adapted by Frank Spotnitz and is being produced for Amazon by Ridley Scott, David Zucker and Jordan Sheehan for Scott Free, Stewart Mackinnon and Christian Baute for Headline Pictures, and Isa Hackett and Kalen Egan for Electric Shepherd. The pilot episode was released by Amazon Studios on January 15, 2015.[7] Amazon Studios works a bit differently than other television channels. They produce pilot episodes of a number of different prospective programs, then release them and gather data on their success. The most promising shows are then picked up as regular series. On February 18, 2015 Amazon.com announced that The Man in the High Castle was greenlit along with four other series and a full season will be produced.[8]
Production
Production for the pilot episode began in October, 2014. Principal filming took place in Seattle, with the city standing in for San Francisco and locations in New York, as well as Roslyn, Washington which was the long-time television set for Northern Exposure. Sites used in Seattle include the Seattle Monorail, the Paramount Theatre, a newspaper office in the Pike Place Market area, as well as various buildings in the city's Capitol Hill, International District, and Georgetown neighborhoods. In Roslyn, the production used external shots of the Roslyn Cafe which featured prominently in Northern Exposure along with several local businesses and scenery.[9][10]
In April 2015 filming took place in Vancouver, British Columbia in the downtown area of West Georgia Street, along the promenade of the Coast Capital Savings Building.[11]
Reception
The Man in the High Castle pilot has received acclaim from critics and fans alike. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds an approval rating of 94% with an average rating of 7.8 based on 16 reviews, with the critical consensus "By executive producer Ridley Scott, The Man in the High Castle is unlike anything else on TV, with an immediately engrossing plot driven by quickly developed characters in a fully realized post-WWII dystopia."[12]
Meredith Woerner from io9.com says of The Man in the High Castle "I can honestly say I loved this pilot. It's an impressive, streamlined undertaking of a fairly complicated and very beloved novel."[13]
References
- ↑ "The Man in the High Castle". IMDB. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
- ↑ Tartaglione, Nancy. "Amazon Orders 5 Original Series Including ‘Man In The High Castle,’ ‘Mad Dogs’". Deadline. Retrieved 18 February 2015.
- ↑ Sweney, Mark (7 October 2010). "Ridley Scott to return to work of sci-fi icon for BBC mini-series". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 7 October 2010.
- ↑ "Syfy, Ridley Scott, Frank Spotnitz set miniseries". Variety.
- ↑ Muir, Pat (5 Oct 2014). "Roslyn hopes new TV show brings 15 more minutes of fame". Yakima Herald. Retrieved 1 Nov 2014.
- ↑ "Amazon Studios Adds Drama ‘The Man In The High Castle’, Comedy ‘Just Add Magic’ To Pilot Slate". Deadline.
- ↑ "Amazon.com: The Man in the High Castle: Season 1, Episode 1". Retrieved 17 January 2015.
- ↑ "Amazon Greenlights Full Seasons of Mad Dogs, The Man in the High Castle, The New Yorker Presents, and Children’s Shows Just Add Magic and The Stinky & Dirty Show". 18 Feb 2015. Retrieved 18 Feb 2015.
- ↑ http://www.djc.com/blogs/NutsAndBolts/?m=201410
- ↑ Muir, Pat (5 Oct 2014). "Roslyn hopes new TV show brings 15 more minutes of fame". Yakima Herald. Retrieved 1 Nov 2014.
- ↑ http://yvrshoots.com/2015/04/shoot-the-man-in-the-high-castles-nazi-john-smith-rufus-sewell-films-at-vancouvers-iconic-arthur-erickson-designed-tower.html#.VTcM8iFVhBc
- ↑ "The Man In The High Castle Season 1". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
- ↑ Woerner, Meredith (16 January 2015). "Man In The High Castle Is Wildly Different From The Book But Still Great". io9. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
External links
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