Amazon Pilot: The Man in the High Castle

I watched a few of the new Amazon Originals pilots and so far I enjoyed all of them for different reasons. I was particularly hopeful that The Man in the High Castle would shine, it being a Philip K. Dick alternative history story.  As Amazon notes:

The Man in the High Castle considers the question of what would have happened if the Allied Powers had lost World War II. Some 20 years after that loss, the United States and much of the world has now been split between Japan and Germany, the major hegemonic states. But the tension between these two powers is mounting, and this stress is playing out in the western U.S. Through a collection of characters in various states of posing (spies, sellers of falsified goods, others with secret identities), The Man in the High Castle provides an intriguing tale about life and history as it relates to authentic and manufactured reality. 

I wish I could say it was a fascinating tale, but the pace of the show was slow and the amount of back story was limited, so you did really know how the characters came to be nor what they and their country faced over the years.  Also, there was clearly some parallel history taking place, but it was never developed nor explained.  Is this a science fiction time-travel story, or a clean version of what could have been?  It is not clear.  

I would like to see the series continue and round out these points, and there was enough suspense to keep me watching, but it may be hard to sell this tale at this pace.   And maybe if had read the book (which I hope to do shortly) it would have probably made more sense, but here are a few items from the book that I located that may help viewers understand the state of the world:

- President Franlin D. Roosevelt was assassinated in 1934, preventing US entry into WWII.

- The US lost its Pacific fleet to Japan and it never built up its military given a prolonged Depression to fend off a Nazi assault on the Atlantic coast. 

-America was split between the Japanese and Germans, with the Rocky Mountains serving as a neutral zone.

-The Germans have nuclear weapons (the TV series mentions the nuking of Washington, DC) that will lead to other technological achievements, including the colonization of the solar system.

-Back on Earth, the Nazis will exterminate Russians and Africans while draining the Mediterranean Sea for farmland and Lebensraum.

Yes, it is one hell of a dark future. The bleakness came through in the Amazon series, but not the full scale of the horror. And while the opaque background reminded me a little of Orwell's 1984, where the past is less important than the present woes, the past is critical here because we know where we left the pieces and now they have been moved.  

I hope the series continues, but it needs to stop assuming everyone has read the book. Only then can it get the viewership it deserves and provide us all with some thoughtful commentary on "what if?"

Update:  Amazon has picked up the series for a full season.  I guess others are similarly hopeful.