Apple TV Plus has released Masters of the Air as of today, the third in the trio of WWII miniseries that also includes Band of Brothers and The Pacific.
Band of Brothers is universally acknowledged as one of the best miniseries of all time, and The Pacific received a lot of praise as well. So, how does Masters of the Air, focused on the dogfighting of WWII, fare compared to those? Good…not utterly amazing, I’d say. Here are the Rotten Tomatoes critic and audience scores for all three projects:
- Band of Brothers – 97% critics, 96% audience
- The Pacific – 91% critics, 89% audience
- Masters of the Air – 83% critics, 93% audience
Some additional context here, Masters of the Air already has more critic reviews in than both Band of Brothers (where back in 2001, Rotten Tomatoes was less of a thing) and The Pacific. And while that audience score is higher, it’s currently only based on less than 50 ratings.
And 83% being down from 91% and 97% is not nothing, but it’s also a solid enough score. I just think people were hoping for something at the same level as Band of Brothers, but this isn’t quite that. For more context, TV shows tend to review pretty highly compared to movies. True Detective season 4 has a 93%. Griselda on Netflix has an 88%. The Bear has a 99%, and so on. So I’m guessing they maybe didn’t want to end up with the same score as “Boy Swallows Universe” or some other Netflix thing you haven’t heard of.
But I am sure a lot of people are going to love Masters of the Air all the same. The TV landscape has changed so much, perhaps it’s just that a show like this doesn’t stand out quite as much as Band of Brothers did in 2001 or The Pacific did in 2010. But 23 years after the first series and 14 after the second, it’s sill great to finally see this make it to air.
Masters of the Air is following a fairly normal Apple style release where the first two episodes are out now, and then they will air once a week after that. There are actually nine episodes of this, which is pretty high for 2024, as I figured there’d probably only be six as a limited series. But hey, I’m all for more.
Time to get watching, as we have two hours to get through today. Then the waiting begins.
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