Peter Bowker‘s seven-part ITV/BBC miniseries is a soap opera set against the beginnings of World War II; like the page-turning doorstops of James Michener or Herman Wouk, it juggles a collection of characters whose lives intersect in surprising ways. It begins in the days before the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, where American reporter Nancy Campbell (Helen Hunt) experiences the start of the German campaign. She is transferred to Berlin, where she jockeys with a censor while growing close to the Rosslers (Johannes Zeiler and Victoria Mayer), whose epileptic daughter Hilda (Dora Zygouri) could become a victim of the Nazi eugenics campaign. Meanwhile, Nancy’s nephew Webster (Brian J. Smith), a doctor in a Paris hospital, becomes infatuated with Albert (Parker Sawyers), a jazz saxophonist whom he persuades not to flee France although being of African descent, he might become a target should Nazis take over the city. In England Douglas Bennett (Sean Bean), a veteran of World War I still suffering the effects of shell shock, distributes pacifist pamphlets while his wastrel son Tom (Ewan Mitchell) tries to avoid the draft and his daughter Lois (Julia Brown) carries a torch for Harry Chase (Jonah Hauer-King), the son of snobbish Robina (Lesley Manville), who disapproves of the relationship. Harry has left Lois behind in Manchester—pregnant, unbeknownst to him—to take up a government post as a translator in Warsaw, where he meets and marries waitress Kasia (Zofia Wichłacz), who implores him to take her younger brother Jan (Eryk Biedunkiewicz) to safety in England, where he leaves the boy with his mother while joining the army after being dismissed from the Foreign Service. In occupied Poland, Kasia joins the resistance and, with her partner Tomasz (Tomasz Ziętek), systematically assassinates German soldiers, while Lois, an amateur singer, joins the British equivalent of the USO and attracts many admirers during her tours. In the course of the series these characters—and others—encounter one another in sometimes unlikely ways as their individual stories unfold. The narrative includes some large-scale set-pieces—Tom, for example, joins the navy and his ship is among those that confront the German cruiser Graf Spee in the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939, while Harry is among the thousands of British and French troops evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk in May and June of 1940. Most of the series, however, is devoted to more intimate moments, some of which—like Robina’s growing protectiveness of Jan and her increased affection for Douglas—is genuinely moving. On the other hand, many of the characters remain rather sketchy and remote, despite the fine cast. The series ends with a cliffhanger in which Harry returns as a spy to Poland and reconnects with Kasia, pointing to a promised second season. While sometimes stilted and filled with coincidences, the handsomely-mounted World on Fire holds one’s interest throughout. Despite an absence of bonus features other than subtitles (some dialogue is in German and Polish), this is recommended. (F. Swietek)
World on Fire: Season One
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