Spielberg's 'Masters of the Air' Shows Brutality of WWII Air War Fridays on Apple TV+

Legendary director and East Hampton resident Steven Spielberg was seen waving to fans as he walked around Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood on January 24, just two days before his much anticipated series Masters of the Air, starring his son Sawyer Spielberg, premiered its first two episodes on Apple TV+.

Set in World War II, Masters of the Air is a long awaited followup to HBO series Band of Brothers and The Pacific, also about WWII and produced by the same team, including Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman. While the previous shows covered the war’s European and Japanese theaters respectively, the new series is about the airmen, pilots and crews who fought from the skies over Europe in the 100th Bomb Group, aka “the Bloody Hundredth.”

A gritty and harrowing glimpse at the brutality and danger of the WWII air war and the men who fought it, Masters of the Air offers a realistic look at the perilous daytime bombing raids over Nazi Germany as airmen struggle against frigid conditions, lack of oxygen, air sickness, frostbite, German flak and fighters, and the sheer terror of combat conducted at 25,000 feet in the sky aboard hulking Boeing B-17 bombers, famously called the “Flying Fortress” for their massive size and firepower coming from multiple gun emplacements.

The show also stars Elvis and Dune 2 actor Austin Butler, Callum Turner (Fantastic Beasts, Emma) and Barry Keoghan (Saltburn, The Banshees of Inisherin), among others in the ensemble.

Sawyer Spielberg, who is 31 and early in his acting career, has starred in a few small film and television roles, as well as local stage productions in the Hamptons, including a recent part in Aaron Posner’s Stupid F*cking Bird — from the Playwrights’ Theatre of East Hampton series at LTV — and a 2019 turn in Our Fabulous Variety Show’s production of Art by Yasmine Reza at Guild Hall.

Masters of the Air episodes 1 and 2 are available now on Apple TV+, and the first one is free. The third installment of the nine-episode series, which introduces a subplot about the Tuskegee Airmen — the U.S. military’s first Black pilots — airs this Friday, February 2 and new episodes will continue airing weekly.

–With Flo Anthony