BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. _ What would have happened if the Axis had triumphed in World War II? It's a question that fascinated science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. That exploration turned into his prize-winning novel, "The Man in the High Castle."
And Amazon Prime has transformed the book into one of the most popular streaming series ever, with Season 2 arriving Friday.
The show isn't only an exercise in fantasy; it relates to what's happening today, says Joel de la Fuente, who plays Inspector Kido.
"I think we're dealing with a world where when big things happen and people don't speak up, you become a complicit part of what happens around you. And I think these days we tend to take our civil liberties for granted. We have so many liberties and rights, and that when people become afraid, it's the first thing we want to give up. So this is a look at what happens when you DO give them up, and how slippery is that road exactly?" he says.
"What does it take to start compromising these values that were fought for, that were sacrificed for so long ago? How blindly we treat these rights that we have. When you take a look at what's happening in the world of this show, it seems at first a stark difference, but then you start seeing how people are behaving, it resonates very heavily with how we're behaving today."
The show features Dick's daughter, Isa Dick Hackett, as one of the executive producers. David W. Zucker is on board as the other showrunner. According to Hackett, the series still has a lot of the novel to draw from. "One of the things that we will actually get into, which we didn't last season, is meeting the man in the High Castle," she says.
"That's a big piece of a character that we didn't get to last season. But the narrative progression is different in the show than it is in the book. So there was a little bit of jumping around. And so there is still quite a bit to do."
Zucker, who took over for Frank Spotnitz, had his work cut out for him. "This is the most complicated show I've ever been associated with," he says.
"Not only looking at the density of source material, the challenge of the narratives that we're telling, but also in just the execution of this. We had the writers from London, shooting production in Vancouver, we're posting in L.A. It is such a customized experience that, frankly, even when we undertook this so many years ago, that it is almost more than any other series I've experienced, very much a sum of the parts," he says.
"It's not like a miniseries, where there's some kind of coup or there's some kind of change of creative direction. The team in Vancouver, the team in the writing room is exactly the same. And I think what we're all trying to do, in honor, is this ongoing course of exploration and discovery in the material provided for us, and that Frank has so wonderfully initiated."
British actor Rufus Sewell plays Nazi official Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith. "One of the dangers of playing a part like this, a Nazi, as you could see in the day-to-day filming when day players would come in, they would unconsciously, automatically make decisions based on what they knew about Nazis," he says.
"It's something that I was trying to avoid every step along the way ... Someone else said it first, but the uniform is the least interesting thing about a person. So I tried to continually remind myself that he was a guy, and an American guy, who _ if history had panned out a different way _ would possibly be very popular. He would have his faults; he would have his good points," he says.
Since John Smith is not in the book, Sewell says he pored over Nazi history to elucidate his character. "I read as much as I could about Nazi history, and the perspective of people who went through it, because I was interested in how people justify things to themselves," he says.
"So they believe that they're good people, and still manage to do things like that. Because that was essentially the interesting question of this character is what would you do? Because people always like to assume if they were in Germany, for example, that they would not have gone that way. And it's very comforting to think that you wouldn't.
"But the truth would suggest otherwise. An entire country went that way. So, for me, it was just about trying to keep him a human being, and resist all my urges to do a slightly more dramatic, stock 'Nazi' kind of thing."
TV TAKES A SECOND LOOK AT HEINOUS MURDER
Production begins this month on another look at the Jeffrey MacDonald case in which the Green Beret was accused of murdering his wife and two kids. The movie will air on Investigation Discovery and stars Scott Foley as MacDonald and Jeffrey Annable as author Joe McGinness, who wrote the book, "Fatal Vision," on which the show is based. Most people don't remember, but in 1984 a terrific two-parter, "Fatal Vision," aired on NBC and featured Gary Cole ("Mercy Street") as the suspect, and Eva Marie Saint and Karl Malden as his in-laws who were convinced he was guilty.
Cole remembers that moment. "I did theater for years in Chicago and come out here, am shooting a movie and _ all of a sudden _ Karl Malden walks in the door, Eva Marie Saint walks in the door. It's a little like the 'Twilight Zone.' You have two choices: You can be in awe or you can just do the work." He did the work. The new show will air sometime next year.
HULU TUNES UP THE CANCELED 'NASHVILLE'
Fans of "Nashville," don't need to worry as their treasured series will be back on Hulu for Season 5 on Jan. 6. But the streaming site will also give you a sneak preview on Friday when it will air the first hour of its new two-hour premiere. And should you have missed the show entirely, you can brush up on the entire series which is streaming on Hulu now. Both Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere will be back. And for Panettiere it marks a return to a first-love.
"I recorded an album when I was younger from about 15 to 19, something like that, and in that period of time, I just was so ever changing as a person. And I think music really reflects who you are as a person, so you're really putting yourself out there. And I quit after about four or five years of recording, and I said, 'This is not me.' But I said that if I was ever going to do music again, I would do country music. And for this to come along and to get both of the things I love combined in one show, it's a dream come true. Really. And I don't mean that in a cliche way."
OSCAR WINNING ACTRESS STARS IN CHRISTMAS MOVIE
Mira Sorvino loses her mind on "A Christmas to Remember," which airs on the Hallmark Channel Sunday. Sorvino plays a tough TV doyenne who needs a break and takes off for a mountain retreat only to have her car slam into a snow bank. She wakes up in the care of a kindly widower with no memory of who she is or what damage she's done. Of course, on the Hallmark Channel he does NOT turn out to be a serial killer, a cult leader, or an IRS agent, but is the gentle father of three. Hmmmm, where on Earth can the plot go from here? Tune in to see.
