Masters of the Air: Episode Discussion 7

[muccamukk]

In which we welcome director Dee Rees, and embrace our boys in shabby chic.

Rules:

1. Don't be a dick. Specifically (but not limited to):


1. Not liking something is fine, and negative comments are fine. Please do not directly tell other participants why the thing they like is bad or that they are bad for liking it.


2. Kink shaming will be deleted.


3. Racism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, misogyny, etc will be deleted.


2. Discussing material from the books is fine, but if you're going to discuss something that happens in future episodes, or the fate of historical characters, please put it under a cut and title the comment Book spoilers! or something similar.


3. Likewise, wanting to treat the show as a self-contained unit and not engage with the books/history is perfectly valid.

How to do an in-comment spoiler cut:
<details><summary>Describe what you're spoiling here</summary>All the spoilers go in this part.</details>

Comments

[muccamukk]

I refuse to acknowledge that they ate the cat. The cat is fine. LALALALA.

Thanks for the essay on Jewish PoWs, very interesting. I'd read quite a bit about what happened to the 106th Infantry Division after the Battle of the Bulge (they were very green, and the majority of them ended up as PoWs, including Kurt Vonnegut) for research into that Babe/Julian fic, and ran into Jewish PoWs swapping or ditching their dog tags, and sometimes being sent to labour camps like Berga. (At one point, the German officers threatened to execute the Jewish prisoners, and everyone in the camp did the I Am Spartacus thing and protected them.)

I'm very fond of the MacGyvering the radio scenes. A+ Hogan's Heroes vibes. I'm kind of

It was nice to see Quinn making it back, but a) I wanted to see more of their escape, especially as the French/Belgian resistance ladies are the only ones in the show aren't there to be fuckable, b) I felt like just having the narration go "they were back, we were glad to see them, they got to go home, yay" drained all of the drama out of them. Compare to the scene towards the end of Red Tails, for example. Couldn't we at least have had a scene where people are happy/surprised to see them and then hugging? But I throw the narrator in a fucking loch for most of this episode. This was another 40-minute episode, and it felt like there were so many scenes we could've been shown not just had summarised, with little to no extra filming expense. Like ten minutes of GETTING TO SEE STUFF HAPPEN BECAUSE THIS IS A TV SHOW! A VISUAL MEDIUM! rather than just being told about it would've made huge difference. I'm not even blaming Dee Rees; no one could've saved this script.

I did like seeing the P-51s, and wish there'd been a longer shot of the chaotic dogfight over Berlin. (I think they started bombing Berlin because they could get to it! Previously, it was just too well defended? But may be wrong on that.) I'm glad we're getting more P-51s next week.

I'm bitterly fucking disappointed in the plot with Croz and Sandra (maybe this is why they changed her name). WTF, Writers! No one wanted that! Why'd they have to go and ruin my favourite part of the show?

Rosie is also my fave!

[kore]

THEY ATE A CAT?