YMMV / Masters of the Air

• Awesome Music: Soar, the show's Main Title Theme, is an epic yet foreboding piece that perfectly captures the suspense, uncertainty, and thrill of an American daylight bombing mission over Europe.
  • Episode 5 gives a Dark Reprise of the theme song, presented in a minor chord, called "The Bloody Hundredth." The song manages to be both a determined march and an ominous dirge.
  • In Episode 5, Rosie starts humming "The Chant" by Artie Shaw during a tense moment in the disastrous Munster raid, much to the bafflement then amusement of his crew, who begin to join in. In Episode 6, Rosie taps out the drum beat of the song on the side of his plane before jumping in for his next mission as the song begins playing for the audience to show that He's Back!
  • Episode 6 features a beautiful cover of Woody Guthrie's "Tear the Fascists Down".
  • Punching Through starts out somber, reflecting the 100th's massive losses in 1943. The second half, however, becomes a Triumphant Reprise of "The Bloody Hundredth", reflecting their ultimate triumph over the German Luftwaffe.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Despite only appearing in three episodes (and not having any dialogue in the last one), the WAC nurse Helen is very popular with fans thanks to her chemistry with Nash, newcomer Emma Canning’s performance and also for her attractiveness.
• Spiritual Successor: Another modern miniseries following a group of men from a branch of the American military in operation during World War II based on Real Life people after Band of Brothers and The Pacific, with again Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks (who both inaugurated the trend with the film Saving Private Ryan) as executive producers.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Due to the show's focus on the 100th Bombardment Group, it only finds room for the famed Tuskegee Airmen in two episodes. The Tuskegee Airmen never flew with the 100th and only crossed paths with its airmen in a German POW camp, so what little we do see of the Tuskegee Airmen is mostly focused on them getting shot down and imprisoned.
• Vanilla Protagonist: The friendship and exploits of Buck and Bucky have some good moments, but many fans think that they take up far too much screentime at the expense of other characters with compelling arcs and experiences who only get the occasional a Day in the Limelight or two, like the Red Tails pilots (who take eight episodes to appear), Croz, Lemmons, or Rosie, making this show sometime feel like less of an ensemble piece than its two predecessors.

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