[Closed] Catch 22

Watched the first two episodes. It's tolerable. I think I would have preferred a movie though.

I thought the filming was impressive, has that old feeling.

Probs warm to the characters, so will record and watch at leisure..

Good enough that I will watch the next episode.  I love the book but think it impossible to do justice on the screen

What rb said.

I thought it started tonight?

I have to admit that I recently gave up on the book and the movie from back in the day is a mess.

Making feature films from books you are on a hiding to nothing as books are generally too long. The series format works much better.

Joseph Heller is an interesting character. When it was suggested that he hadn't written a book as good as Catch-22 he replied that neither had anybody else!

I thought it was excellent. Have read the book 7 times now and thought the first episode did the book justice. Looking forward to episode 2.

2 of my 3 favourite books have been televised this year - Good Omens and now Catch-22. Is The Crow Road next? I can only hope as the last time it was done it was awful, rewrote the story and missed out a lot of the important bits.

When it was suggested that he hadn’t written a book as good as Catch-22 he replied that neither had anybody else!

And he's right. Great retort! 😀

Its my favourite book. I read it again last couple of weeks in anticipation of the series. I think for the 9th time. Its the work of unbridled genius!

I really enjoyed it last night. The casting looks bang on for the characters. As its such a difficult thing to film I think they'll have to be cut some slack, but it was a promising start. Who'd want the job of turning this particular book into a screenplay? Looks like they've done a good job. Mrs Binners has never read the book and enjoyed it too

I remember the film being frenetic at the start...
so enjoyed the different pace of episode 1.
- not looking forward to the final 'gunner flashback scene' - I can still see the words from when i read it years ago.

so the strength of my opinion is as yet undimmed, and force of my argument undiluted, by my actually having seen it yet...

Anyway, read the book when I was eleven or twelve for the rude bits, and didn't get much else. And then a few times subsequently over the years, though not for decades. So I must like it, though it gets a bit down and meandery in the middle as I recall. But the film with Art Garfunkel I'd call really underrated. Whatever, on the basis of this thread I'll give it a watch.

I love things like this - I had no idea about Catch-22 until this thread.  I’d seen the ads for the tv show yet dismissed it a Clooney comedy war show, and I don’t like Clooney-comedy or comedy-war.   Read this thread, did some googling and watched it.

Obviously im not in a place to make comparisons but I’m very intrigued about the book, author and style now so will watch with interest.

Really enjoyed first episode.

I feel this thread needs some military aviation continuity/goofs comments though...

I’ll open with there was no gun body shown in the nose on the B25, just a broom handle protruding out as a barrel.

Agreed Mat.

Niggled me during the flying scenes, which were otherwise really, really impressive.

The flight scenes look amazing! They really convey how truly terrifying it must be to be on the business end of that amount of flak.

At this point it looks like Yossarian is still quite measured on his bomb runs. I’m looking forward to seeing how they portray the manic screaming that degenerates into in the aftermath of the ‘going around twice’ mission to Ferrara, which seems to be the tipping point of the book in lots of ways.

Kryton... you should definitely read the book. It’s an incredible piece of writing