The Man in High Castle is Sci-Fi Alternate history series that ran on Amazon Video for four seasons, it recently ended its run with a concluding series finale on November 15th, 2019. the show stars Alexa Davalos, Rufus Sewell, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (1-3), Rupert Evans (1-3), Luke Kleintank (1-3) and many more, the story takes place in an alternate history setting which the Axis forces won the second world war by developing the Atom bomb before the allies did which means the United States is occupied by The Third Richet and the Japanese Empire. The series is an adaptation of a 1962 Philip K. Dick novel under the same name.
As a big fan of the original Philip K. Dick and almost all Alt-History, I was very interested in the series from its early conception and the adaptation efforts, fans of the books know that Philip K. Dick always wanted and made attempts to write a follow up to his book but none of these efforts ever materialized into a Novel and the show tries to finish the story of High Castle and somehow effectively and successfully finishes it, but not flawlessly and the issue goes back to the same issue the book had, the central sci-fi mystery of the show is working against the contemporary story of the central characters. while the main characters are trying to survive a harsh world there is a mystery of an alternative world where the allies won the world which just muddies the focus and clarity of the main plot, and that has always been the issue of the novel and the show doesn’t do anything to fix that.
Alternatively, the show has another issue that just frustrated me the whole time, it juggles the main cast of characters a lot, the characters you start the show with are not the ones you finish it with them and they don’t always meet an interesting end, also the showrunners introduced few new characters that were half baked and it just felt like a waste of time to follow them while much more interesting subjects remained unexplored like Nazi Concentration Camps in the USA and how they were getting rid of unwanted races in the Richet or Japanese Pacific State, also some other elements get thrown into the mix while being left unexplored and that just adds to the pile of issues the show had.
That being said, the show has some fantastic performances mainly from Rufus Sewell who plays the Nazi Reichsmarschall who was an American army officer and turned Nazi after the occupation, eventually, he becomes the central antagonist of the show but the showrunners do a good job by making him a sympathetic villain with a lot of depth, my second favorite performance was Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as trade minister Tagomy, you might know him from his past roles in the cult epic Mortal Kombat as Shang-Tsung and as Sanga in Kickboxer 2, naturally, I didn’t expect a calm performance from him based on his past but he was my favorite character on the show, the show also does a really amazing job with the costumes and make them as authentic as possible and it is really an impressive job.
The sad thing it could have benefited from an extra season, the events of Season 4 is leading to an interesting era for the characters and it could have been interesting to see it, but either way, the ending is satisfying and leaves it open for your imagination to come up with what happens next.
Verdict: The Man in High Castle is a good show with great performances and it gives fans of the original beloved book a much-wanted sequel, I just wished it did a better job with the sci-fi twist of the story. (8/10)
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