AVIATION SERIES : King of the Skies

On the PBS Networks which has a free 7 day trial on Amazon Prime.

8 part series: (some spoilers of the first episode):

This series is about Albert Plesman and Anthony Fokker in 1919 and following.

Plesman is trying to become part of a hoped for new company in Holland, KLM. His friend who sometimes flies for him is Anthony Fokker who's father is not happy with young Fokker who isn't living up to his father's earlier accomplishments who built a lucrative aviation company which prospered during WW1.

In one scene Plesman is holding a demonstration at the airfield for the press and here comes his pilot handsome young stud Anthony Fokker zooming far to close to the guests and dropping leaflets about his own upcoming side airshow. In another scene Plesman is delighted  that  Queen Wilhelmina is to be attendance at another of his airshow demonstrations and Wilhelmina asks him if flying is really safe, and would it be safe for her to in a plane as a passenger. Plesman's very young son has been running around pestering everyone. Next scene Fokker is, as usual, showing off with daring stunts but who is the passenger? Turns out it's not the Queen but Plesman's kid. Much to the anger of Plessman's obviously very pregnant wife who is back on the ground watching, and who was expecting a gentle flight.

In another scene a grumbling young Fokker is being regaled by a war story from his restaurant companion. Who it turns out is young Hermann Goering. Goering is telling Fokker how he can finally unload  the 200 D7 fighters which the  Fokker company has in storage wasting away. Germany is planning to finance Lenin and the Reds in their war against the Whites and in return Germany can build and test all the fighter planes they want on the new nation's soil. Thus getting around the Versailles treaty limits imposed on Germany. That Fokker could unload those idle 200 planes, please his father, and build up the company. Fokker is of course delighted with this scheme.

Other series on PBS include Sanditon, and a new remake of the Yorkshire veterinarian series All Things Great and Small, and the last season (2022) of Endeavor.

Sandition is based on an unfinished Jane Austen novel (Miss Austen passed away before completing it). Our usual young heroine Catherine has for a companion a very black Miss Georgiana Lambe from the West Indies, who is a character which Miss Austen introduced in the last 2 chapters of her less than half finished book. I believe Miss Lambe is only black character from Jane Austen's pen, unusual for Regency England.

Edited July 20, 20223 yr by Fielder