World on Fire is a sprawling BBC epic about WWII that shows not only that "war is hell" but also so is fascism. Its 13 episodes move from London to Nazi-occupied Poland and France (Paris and Normandy) to North Africa with a lot of characters to keep track of. Yet somehow it succeeds in drawing us into these characters' lives. I give most of the credit to the casting directors (Victor Jenkins, Maya Kvetny, and Anna-Lena Slater). As the Oscars are about to add an award for best casting director, these three deserve one for the marvelous actors chosen for all the key characters in this drama. Even those whose screen time is not that long shine and most of them are so appealing that you want them to succeed and survive.
Jonah Hauer-King (Harry Chase), Julia Brown (Lois), Zofia Wichlacz (Kasia) Eugénie Derouand (Henriette), Parker Sawyers (Albert), Ahad Raza Mir (Rajib), Yrsa Daley-Ward (Connie) and Gregg Sulkin (David) were all wonderfully appealing, and Lesley Manville (Robina Chase) and Mark Bonnar (Sir James) were suitably snobby and debonair respectively in their important home-front roles.
I really was anxious to watch each episode to find out what happened to these people and the directors managed to keep the tension high despite all the scene switching. Overall, an excellent and timely series.
One caveat is that I think the series could have used one more episode to sort out what happened to some of these people, but mostly we can guess and have some hope. (One exception is that the censored English news reader in Germany, played by Helen Hunt, did not rejoin the cast in season 2 and nothing was said about her.)
Jonah Hauer-King (Harry Chase), Julia Brown (Lois), Zofia Wichlacz (Kasia) Eugénie Derouand (Henriette), Parker Sawyers (Albert), Ahad Raza Mir (Rajib), Yrsa Daley-Ward (Connie) and Gregg Sulkin (David) were all wonderfully appealing, and Lesley Manville (Robina Chase) and Mark Bonnar (Sir James) were suitably snobby and debonair respectively in their important home-front roles.
I really was anxious to watch each episode to find out what happened to these people and the directors managed to keep the tension high despite all the scene switching. Overall, an excellent and timely series.
One caveat is that I think the series could have used one more episode to sort out what happened to some of these people, but mostly we can guess and have some hope. (One exception is that the censored English news reader in Germany, played by Helen Hunt, did not rejoin the cast in season 2 and nothing was said about her.)
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