Running Time: The Man in the High Castle

Specifically, season 1, episodes 1 and 2.  The introductory episode runs 61 minutes, while the second brings you back to even with 59.  I watched "The New World," episode 1, in two runs on the same day; 30 minutes in the morning, wanted to see the rest enough to watch during another three mile run late that afternoon.  Episode 2, "Sunrise," was also a two-run view, but it was forty minutes in the first run and just a two mile finisher the next day.

(I also watched Episode 3 while sitting on the couch one night this week.  The whole series doesn't have to be viewed from a treadmill.)

I'm loving this.  I've been a big fan of Philip K. Dick for years, and The Man in the High Castle was one of my favorite of his novels.  Despite that, I'm pretty certain this is going to be one of those rare occasions where I find the film better than the written story.  Sacrilege, I know, but it happens.  Face it, Bladerunner was a much better film (and comprehensible story) than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was a book. 

The quick synopsis: it's 1962 and the Allies did not win World War Two.  The Pacific States of America are occupied by Japan, the eastern seaboard is under control of the Reich, and a thin band of mountain and desert states in between are an uneasily free Neutral Zone.  Although people have settled somewhat into a new way of life, tension is already mounting between Germany and Japan, with heavy foreboding that Hitler's death will result in new conflict as Germany completes its quest for global dominance. 

Add in an American resistance network and you've got a great background for very compelling stories, not the least of which is the Man himself.  The Man in the High Castle is a semi-mythic figure who's distributing film -- newsreel footage which shows an alternate history of the Allies winning the war. 

It's not the same story as the Philip K. Dick novel.  IMDB's message board is full of purists and trolls bitching about how different the story is, or nitpicking the least essential details in an effort to show off to the one or two other people who care.  (It's called "film adaptation," kiddos.)  So far it's a great show, though, and pleasantly surprising from a production point of view; I didn't know Amazon Studios had this good of filmmaking in them.  Go figure.