Das Boot falls victim to the conventions of Prestige TV

The New Republic

The Hulu sequel to Wolfgang Petersen's 1981 World War II submarine film has story beats that "feel very 2010s," says Adrian Daub, who adds: "If anything, the show is a little dispiriting in the completeness with which it has absorbed the narrative lingua franca of international prestige TV. Where last year’s Netflix-phenom Babylon Berlin invited international viewers into a complex web of loyalties and alliances, Das Boot uses its focus on toxic masculinity as a way to render its world more transparent than it probably should be. Petersen’s version of Das Boot was punishing in its pacing, Hulu’s version is fleet almost to a fault. Where Petersen’s three-hour epic was itself a U-boat, silent and heavy and claustrophobic for much of its run time, this new version is a torpedo, efficient and relentless. And the show greases that torpedo with the occasional bouts of extreme gore, nudity, and rape."