The Man in the High Castle

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Season 1
Season #: 4, 3, 2, 1
Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 30 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 30
  3. Negative: 0 out of 30
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Critic Reviews

  1. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
    Reviewed by: Rob Owen
    Nov 20, 2015
    60
    The Man in the High Castle is a show that walks a fine line; it’s just intriguing enough to keep me coming back, but it doesn’t make me yearn to watch the next episode.
  2. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: James Poniewozik
    Nov 19, 2015
    60
    The character-building, unfortunately, is far weaker than the world-building. The dialogue is often B-movie grade, and Juliana and Frank, the closest thing the ensemble has to leads, are dull and dour.... That said, I finished six episodes eager to see the last four. High Castle is at least addictive as a mystery.
  3. Uncle Barky
    Reviewed by: Ed Bark
    Nov 18, 2015
    58
    Amazon Prime takes a big swing here, and doesn’t entirely miss. More was anticipated, though, with High Castle so far tending to buckle under the weight of some very heavy ambitions and expectations.

Awards & Rankings

52
#52 Best TV Season of 2015
18
#18 Most Discussed TV Season of 2015
26
#26 Most Shared TV Season of 2015

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.3

Generally favorable reviews- based on 360 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 273 out of 360
  2. Mixed: 34 out of 360
  3. Negative: 53 out of 360
  1. SirensOfTitan
    Nov 22, 2015
    10
    For those who don't know: The show is based on a Phillip K. Dick novel exploring the alternate reality in which the Japanese and Germans wonFor those who don't know: The show is based on a Phillip K. Dick novel exploring the alternate reality in which the Japanese and Germans won World War II. It's more addictive than House of Cards and has a lot more legroom to explore than David Fincher's fantastic work.

    The acting and the directing stand out in this show. It's filled with several homages to David Lynch and Ingmar Bergman with a powerful accented cinematographic style. Rufus Sewell (The Illusionist) plays a masterful antagonist that no doubt will receive some emmy nominations.

    My only gripe with this show (after seeing all of the episodes) is that I wish they spoke in their proper languages (German and Japanese) over English everywhere. I understand that languages other than english have a potential to alienate US audiences, but I think this ruined the immersion a bit. Narcos was mostly in Spanish and (from what I know) has done quite well. Language is powerful in building impactful characters. Just the use of it can change the tone of the show.

    Overall, I'd heavily recommend this show. Ignore the haters below. They're nothing more than pseudo-intellectuals who are pining over incredibly insignificant details. One guy even complained that the use of currencies with no cents ruined the immersion for him. Another is complaining that they didn't get a large scale occupation 'right' because many of the main characters seemed indoctrinated (and he argues 15 years isn't enough). Most of the main characters are under 30, and as such would have spent most of their adult lives in occupation.    … Full Review »
  2. cpontier77
    Nov 22, 2015
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view. I very much wanted to like this series. It is so ambitious and (considering it's an Amazon headliner) during production possessed all the resources it would have needed to succeed.

    Acting was poor. Characters were thin and hard to relate to. Their emotions were poorly conveyed and their motivations were unclear. Someone close to the main character and she is essentially fine. She decides to do something and people close to her get hurt. Does she not have a heart? Or does she lack a brain?

    The entire universe that they create is laughable. As other users have pointed out, everything was stamped with a swastika. Likely because everyone constantly forgets they are being controlled by an outside power. For approximately two decades. Fat chance. Many objects/structures/vehicles were old/seemingly dysfunctional/generally crap. Yet the Germans had "superior tech" in this reality. Did they want to occupy and work hard at maintaining control in the United States just to turn it into a dump and laugh at it from Berlin? Everything within 2 episodes has cost a whole number in whatever the local currency was. 3 Yen for medicine, 2 Marks for food. 3 Marks for something else. So, no smaller denominations to pay for smaller purchases? That totally makes sense. On and on, the list of these inconsistencies grows as I begin episode 2.

    What I disliked the most was the cliché choices for environment designs. Anyone that has played Fallout or Bioshock will gag at how hard they try to replicate the vibes those games created.    … Full Review »
  3. Rattazustra
    Nov 20, 2015
    0
    If you do not know ANYTHING at all about history, economics, science, politics, psychology and war, this show may be enjoyable to you. If thisIf you do not know ANYTHING at all about history, economics, science, politics, psychology and war, this show may be enjoyable to you. If this is not the case it is very unlikely that you will find this watchable.

    The entire setup is implausible and sloppily written and pretty much nothing makes sense. The German translations of English signs are almost all wrong and that spells disaster for such a production. Not because the actual text would matter, but because it is a clear sign of amateurish work and producers who don't care about their own products.

    Then there is the swastikas and the constant use of the "Nazi" term. Nazis did not call everything they did and owned "Nazi-XYZ" and they certainly did not adorn EVERYTHING with swastikas. The show however seems to think that it has to maximize the NAZIness out of even a phonebooth. "Greater Nazi Reich" is about as dumb as it comes. Nazi is short for Nationalsozialismus, national socialism, but I am sure the creators of this show do not know that. Plausible names would have been "Deutsch-Amerika", "Amerikanische Staaten von Großdeutschland", or something else along the lines. "Größeres Nazi Reich"? No, not even close. That is as if an American occupation somewhere else would call itself "Embiggened Ammie Union".

    The worst thing however is that they could not even get the concept of an occupied state right. On one hand they present everything as Nazi-occupied and tyrannical, but then they completely fail to have all the things that such systems do. Freedom of travel?! Oh, please. How infantile. No tyrannical system EVER in the entire history of mankind allowed subjugated people freedom of travel. Not even it's own citizens had such freedom. Not in the Soviet Union and not in Nazi Germany.

    Such things matter. Not every piece of it all the time, but for the eventual product.

    The behavior of the characters is even worse. If my system got murdered literally a few meters away from me, I could not even imagine reacting like the woman in the show did. Also for the amount of brainwashing that most of the characters seem to have absorbed, there was simply never enough time between 1947 and 1962. Mere 15 years are not enough to brainwash an entire nation.

    Sloppy, incorrect, implausible, incredible, badly written. The book is actually better but it is a child of it's time. It doesn't help much that the reality portrayed in the setting is factually a "false" reality. Even false realities need to make sense within themselves.    … Full Review »
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