Das Boot, Season Two, on MHz Choice

This season could be called “the Hunt for Reich October.” U-boat captain Johannes von Reinhartz is sick of collecting medals for torpedoing civilian passenger ships. He wants to end the war and if that also ends National Socialism, so much the better. He is supposed to ferry Gestapo saboteurs to the New England coast, but instead, he intends to pop up in the middle of Manhattan’s harbor, where he will turn over his U-boat and its Enigma machine to the American authorities. However, the Kriegsmarine’s most psychotic U-boat captain has been ordered to stop him in season two of creators Johannes W. Betz & Tony Saint’s Das Boot, which premieres today on MHz Choice.

It has been over seven years since Hulu streamed season one and only season one (out of four total). That is a long time in between seasons (for Americans), but it is surprisingly easy to pick up the flow of the next batch of episodes. Inexperienced Captain Klaus Hoffman was cast adrift, presumed to his death, after deranged Captain Ulrich Wrangel rallied his crew to mutiny. Instead, Hoffman managed to reach shore, finding his way to the office of Samuel Greenwood, the son of an American industrialist trying to keep his business ties to Germany under wraps. The junior Greenwood represented half of the highly classified prisoner swap Hoffman’s U-boat conducted. Now, the American hopes to extract information to help his father bid for defense contracts.

Although briefly imprisoned for leading the insurrection, Wrangel is reinstated to hunt down von Reinhartz, once his betrayal is exposed. Wrangel assumes von Reinhartz’s honor will be his undoing. Conversely, von Reinhartz expects Wrangel’s recklessness will eventually lead him to overplay his hand. While von Reinhartz initially hopes to keep his crew in the dark, he recruits radio operator Frank Strasser as an ally. Strasser yearns to reunite with the daughter he sent to safety abroad. His sister Simone, a translator for the SS and a secret resistance member, is more idealistic, but it will cost her dearly.

Like season one, the action shifts back and forth between the aquatic warfare in the Atlantic, land-based intrigue—either the Resistance’s tragic drama in France or the espionage-saboteur thriller that develops in New York. Fittingly for a series titled Das Boot, the submarine-based storyline is the tightest, tensest, and grabbiest, while the Resistance arc is the weakest. Yet, it still has its merits. It also features Vicky Krieps (whose stature has grown considerably since the series originally aired in Germany), as Simone Strasser.

Arguably, the New York sections happen to be a surprisingly smart and engaging departure from season one. Although sick of war, Hoffman feels compelled to return to Germany. To that end, he falls in with German spy Friedrich Berger, who has forged an alliance with the German Bund and anti-British Irish officials in the police and local government. At one point, writer Colin Teevan clearly implies Tammany Hall was treasonously sympathetic to Germany. That would sound inconceivable, but a Mamdani appointee was just caught trying to forge an alliance with the Iranian regime, so apparently history repeats itself.

Regardless, Clemens Schick is terrific as the disillusioned but still crafty von Reinhartz. Likewise, Stefan Konarske makes a worthy rival as the sweaty, unhinged Wrangel. Similarly, Pit Bukowski is spectacularly twitchy as Pips Luders, a U-boat engineer imploding from the guilt resulting from his crimes during the mutiny.

Das Boot: The Series

It was a case of what went around, came around. German U-boats were notoriously feared by the Allies during World War II, but the mortality rate for U-boat crews was also perilously high. Anyone who saw Wolfgang Peterson’s Das Boot (still the record-holder for German language films when it comes to Oscar nominations and American box office) has a visceral understanding of the watery deaths resulting from submarine warfare. That might seem like an impossible film to sequelize, but German TV went back to Lothar-Gunther Buchheim’s original source novel and his follow-up, Die Festung as the basis for the eight-part sequel series treatment, directed by Andreas Prochaska. It is a new crew, but war is still an ugly, dehumanizing business in Das Boot, which starts streaming tomorrow on Hulu.

This is U-162. U-96 went to its submerged grave in the movie and U-113 joins it in Davy Jones locker during the prologue, just in case we forgot the dangers U-boat crews risked. Just as in the film, the crew of U-162 are far removed from the genocidal crimes of the National Socialist war machine, but they are definitely not heroes. In fact, their cruise will be marred by incidents of hazing, dereliction of duty, accidental maiming, accusations of cowardice, and outright insurrection.

The problem starts at the top of U-162’s command. Despite his inexperience, Klaus Hoffman will be captaining the U-boot, presumably because he is the son of a legendary naval officer. His veteran 1^st Watch Officer Karl Tennstedt was already resentful to be passed over for promotion again, but Hoffman’s alleged timidity pushes him to undercut the captain among the crew. Their differing approaches will come to a head when the U-boat is assigned a secret mission, of questionable strategic value.

Meanwhile, Simone Strasser, an Alsace-German working as a civilian interpreter in the German navy’s La Rochelle base finds herself up to her neck in intrigue. Initially, she considers herself a loyal German, but her faith will be shaken after her brother Frank is summoned to serve aboard U-162 at the last minute. She subsequently learns he had agreed to trade sensitive U-boat schematics to the resistance, in exchange for forged papers for himself and the secret Jewish wife his sister never knew he had. However, things really get awkward when SS Kriminalrat Hagen Forster takes a personal and professional interest in her, while she develops a romantic attraction to British resistance firebrand, Carla Monroe.

Unlike the film, Das Boot the series spends a lot of time above water, but the submarine storyline remains dramatically superior. The rivalry between Hoffman and Tennstedt resonates on a primal level, with Rick Okon and August Wittgenstein generating considerable sparks as the antagonistic officers. Plus, things really get tense when a surprise guest, played with cool, clammy menace by Stefan Konarske, makes a surprise guest appearance on U-162 (it’s complicated).

In contrast, the energy level noticeably flags when the series cuts back to the lust and espionage in La Rochelle. Vicky Krieps’ deer-in-the-headlights portrayal of Strasser simply is not sufficiently engaging to carry her story arc. Lizzy Caplan is more interesting as the reckless and cynical Monroe, but they are never credible as a couple. However, James D’Arcy nearly saves the land-based storyline as the dashing British operative Philip Sinclair, but he arrives way too late in the series.

Das Boot the series has its merits and weaknesses, but it ends with a massively intriguing cliff-hanger that will have viewers coming back for the already announced second season, even if they have mixed feelings about the first eight episodes (as they could very well). It is not perfect, but the unnervingly claustrophobic battle scenes and the work of Konarske, Okon, and D’Arcy are definitely worth seeing. Recommended (when its underwater), for fans of military dramas, Das Boot the series premieres tomorrow (6/17) on Hulu.