“Masters of the Air” follows the fighting men of the 100th Bomb Group (nicknamed the “Bloody Hundredth”) as they battle the Nazis during World War II. The show is loaded with characters, but the main focus is primarily on two best buddies — Major Gale Cleven (Austin Butler) and Major John Egan (Callum Turner). Gale is nicknamed “Buck” while John is called “Bucky,” and the fact that they have similar nicknames is about the extent of their character development. The two leads do the best that they can with the material, and Turner manages to stand out with John’s more self-destructive tendencies. Butler, meanwhile, is still doing his “Elvis” voice, to the point where I wonder if that’s just what he sounds like. In any case, it’s impossible to listen to his dialogue and not think of him doing an Elvis impersonation.
Other characters come and go, like Nate Mann as Major Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal, a self-proclaimed Jew from Brooklyn who can’t shake the horrors of war. Barry Keoghan pops up doing a very bad New Yawk accent as Lt. Curtis Biddick. And then there’s Anthony Boyle as Major Harry Crosby, a navigator who is prone to air sickness. For reasons that are never quite clear, Crosby serves as the narrator of the show, and his narration, through no fault of the actor, is clumsy and exposition-heavy, to the point where you can’t help but wish it had been cut entirely — the show simply doesn’t need it. The second-to-last episode brings in some of the Tuskegee Airmen to add some much-needed diversity to the story, but this feels like an afterthought. Simply put, none of these men are particularly interesting, and it’s a chore to follow them through the hells of battle.