The Man in the High Castle (TV series)

The Man in the High Castle is an American dystopian alternate history television series created for streaming service Amazon Prime Video, depicting a parallel universe where the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan rule the world after their victory in World War II. It was created by Frank Spotnitz and produced by Amazon Studios, Ridley Scott's Scott Free Productions (with Scott serving as executive producer), Headline Pictures, Electric Shepherd Productions, and Big Light Productions. The series is based on Philip K. Dick's 1962 novel of the same name.

The pilot premiered in January 2015, and Amazon ordered a ten-episode season the following month which was released in November. A second season of ten episodes premiered in December 2016, and a third season was released on October 5, 2018. The fourth and final season premiered on November 15, 2019.

Setting
Set in 1962, the series' main setting is a parallel universe where the Axis powers have won World War II in 1946 after Giuseppe Zangara successfully assassinates United States President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, creating a series of developments that include the Germans dropping an atomic bomb on Washington, D.C. (now renamed "District of Contamination"). The German Reich extends to Europe and Africa and the Empire of Japan comprises Asia, but most of the series is set in the former US and in Germany proper.

Western North America, now part of the "Japanese Pacific States", is occupied by the technologically less-advanced Shōwa-period Empire of Japan, which has assimilated its formerly American citizens into Japanese culture, although high-class ethnic Japanese are extremely fascinated by pre-War American culture. Japan's Trade and Science ministers work in the Pacific States' capital, San Francisco. The Japanese rulers subject non-Japanese people to discrimination and grant them fewer rights.

Eastern and Midwestern North America is a colony controlled by the Greater Nazi Reich (GNR) under an aging Führer Adolf Hitler. The colony, headed by a "Reichsmarschall of North America", is commonly referred to as "Nazi America" or "the American Reich" and its capital is New York City. The Nazis continue to hunt minorities and euthanize the physically and mentally sick. The superior technology of the Germans is highlighted by the use of video phones and Concorde-like "rockets" for intercontinental travel.

A Neutral Zone, which encompasses the Rocky Mountains, serves as a buffer zone between the Japanese Pacific States and Nazi America due to Cold War–like tensions between the German and Japanese blocs. Another buffer zone is present in the Urals.

Films collected by the eponymous "Man in the High Castle" show views of numerous other Earths, including some where the Allies were victorious, some featuring executed Allied leaders (such as Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin), and some where an American resistance is doing well.

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Season 1
In an alternate 1962, Juliana Crain is a woman in Japanese-ruled San Francisco, who becomes entangled with the resistance when her half-sister Trudy Walker is killed by Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido of the Kempeitai. Before she is killed, Trudy gives Juliana a film canister containing a newsreel titled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. The film depicts an alternate history in which the Allies defeated Germany and Japan. The film is part of a series of similar 8 mm reels that the mysterious underground figure known as "the Man in the High Castle" (later revealed to be an old resistance chief, Hawthorne Abendsen) is both collecting and distributing, to the chagrin of the Reich's Führer Adolf Hitler, who, for initially unprecised reasons, is also collecting them. Juliana comes to believe the newsreel reflects some sort of alternate reality and is part of a larger truth about how the world should be. Her boyfriend, Frank Frink—who keeps his Jewish roots hidden to avoid extradition and death at the hands of the Nazis—believes the newsreel is some kind of hoax. Juliana learns that Trudy was transporting the film to a contact in Canon City, Colorado, in the Neutral Zone, and decides to travel there in Trudy's place, to find out what her mission was.

In Canon City, Juliana encounters Joe Blake, a member of the resistance who expects to be meeting Trudy. Joe, however, is actually a double agent working for the Nazis under Obergruppenführer John Smith, a former US Army officer who joined the Nazis and rose through the ranks to become a senior officer in the SS. Smith survives an assassination attempt, presumably by the resistance forces, and begins trying to discover who passed the information about his movements to the resistance. Frank is arrested when the Japanese and the Nazis become suspicious of Juliana's activities. Not having the information they seek, he is unable to give the Japanese what they are looking for. They kill Frank's sister and her two children in retaliation, using their Jewish heritage as an excuse for their executions. This leads Frank to plan to kill the visiting Japanese Crown Prince and Princess, but, standing in the crowd in front of the podium, he hesitates. Shots are fired, and the Crown Prince is shot by a Nazi sniper instead of by Frank.

Trade Minister Nobusuke Tagomi is a high-ranking Japanese official, in San Francisco. He meets in secret with Nazi official Rudolph Wegener, who is traveling incognito as a Swedish businessman. Tagomi and Wegener are both concerned about the power vacuum that will exist when Hitler either dies or is forced to step down because of his worsening Parkinson's disease. Wegener explains that Hitler's successor will want to use the Reich's nuclear bombs against Japan to gain control of the rest of the former United States. Currently, however, Japan and the Reich are engaged in a cold war that is full of tension but no open warfare, with the Japanese lagging behind the Germans technologically. Smith is visited in New York by another high-ranking Nazi, Reinhard Heydrich, and is wary of Heydrich's ambitions see Hitler replaced. Heydrich invites Smith to go hunting, where it is made clear that Smith can either join the plot or be eliminated. Heydrich, however, receives a call he expected would confirm Hitler's assassination, but the caller is actually Hitler himself informing Heydrich that his plot failed. Smith then arrests Heydrich as a traitor.

Season 2
Hunted by the Japanese, who hold her responsible for at least one murder, Juliana claims asylum in the Nazi Reich at its San Francisco embassy. Smith, seeing that her claim is unlikely to succeed, steps in and sponsors it himself, taking Juliana to New York under his protection without Joe's knowledge. Dr. Adler tells Smith that his son Thomas has muscular dystrophy, which must be reported to the Reich so that Thomas can be euthanized as a burden to society. Smith kills Adler to keep Thomas' condition secret, making it look like a heart attack. Joe discovers that he is a product of the Lebensborn programme, and is the sole biological son of a top-ranking Nazi official in Berlin, Martin Heusmann. Eventually, Joe reconciles with Heusmann, who becomes Acting Chancellor of the Reich during Hitler's final illness and after his subsequent death, until the Nazi party can meet and select Hitler's successor. Heusmann announces on television that Hitler was assassinated by Japanese agents, and vows to bring the perpetrators to justice by any means necessary, including war. Smith, aware of Heydrich's plotting, is the only high-ranking Nazi official to be suspicious of Heusmann's sudden announcement. Smith arranges for the release of Heydrich, pretending that he has accepted that Heydrich will be the new Führer, upon which Heydrich reveals that it is Heusmann who will be the new Führer. Heusmann intends to launch a Nazi nuclear onslaught against the Japanese Empire. The attack would kill tens of millions of Japanese and their emperor, level Tokyo, and decimate the Empire, forcing the surviving Japanese to absorb themselves into a global Nazi Reich that would strengthen Heusmann's position.

Smith attempts to carefully disrupt and dismantle the Heusmann conspiracy, and travels to Berlin to inform Nazi Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler of its existence. Smith gives Himmler a hoard of physical evidence that cannot be dismissed as hearsay, and Himmler arrests Heusmann for high treason and the murder of Hitler, also detaining Joe. Himmler addresses the Volkshalle, packed with hundreds of thousands of Reich military personnel and civilians. Himmler puts aside Heusmann's intended speech declaring war on Japan, and instead informs the Reich of Heusmann's conspiracy and Smith's exposure of it. Smith is lionized as a Nazi hero, and Himmler's accession to Führer implies a new era of peace and tranquility between the Japanese Empire and the Greater Nazi Reich. Thomas, inspired by his father's devotion to the Reich, turns himself in to be euthanized. Frank decides to put aside his relative pacifism and become a committed member of the American Resistance to the Japanese Empire inside the Pacific States. He eventually participates in a terrorist bombing of a central command building of the Pacific States government in Downtown San Francisco, also intended to kill Kido. The attack kills many members of the Japanese military and other top-level leadership, but not Kido. Juliana flees New York and arrives in the Neutral Zone, where she sees Trudy, who is very much alive.

Season 3
After months in prison, Joe is forced to execute Heusmann, and becomes part of Himmler's secret service. Juliana discovers that Trudy comes from an alternate universe where Juliana died, and later meets a mysterious Irish black market dealer, Wyatt Price. Trudy becomes ill from her contact with Juliana's world and is forced to return to her own universe. Meanwhile, a disfigured Frank is living in a secret community of Jews, painting antifascist artwork that is turning up in Japanese-occupied territories. Tagomi and Admiral Inokuchi realize that the Reich is putting a secret embargo on petroleum against the Empire. George Lincoln Rockwell, Reichsmarschall of North America, is plotting with J. Edgar Hoover, head of the American Reich Bureau of Investigation, against Smith, now Oberst-Gruppenführer. Nicole, a young Berlin-born filmmaker, has moved to Nazi America to complete a propaganda film about the "heroic" life of Thomas Smith. She next starts working with Billy Turner, a Nazi functionary, on a new propaganda project, named Jahr Null ('year zero'), to "erase" the history of the former United States. This includes demolishing the Lincoln Memorial; melting the Liberty Bell to reshape it into a swastika; and destroying the Statue of Liberty (which is to be replaced by a statue of John and Thomas Smith named "The New Colossus"). Nicole becomes romantically involved with a married New York City reporter, Thelma Harris, who is later arrested in an SS raid (secretly ordered by Himmler) of a lesbian club. Himmler sends Joe to San Francisco on an ostensibly diplomatic mission, but he is actually there to kill a list of Reich defectors and Japanese functionaries, including Tagomi. Before Joe can finish, Juliana stops him by killing Joe herself. In New York City, Smith's wife Helen is devastated by Thomas' death. She accidentally kills Dr. Adler's wife, who is obsessed with the idea that her husband was murdered. Though Smith is fearful of their secrets coming out, he consents to Helen seeing a psychiatrist to deal with the trauma of this killing, and her grief over Thomas.

Childan and Ed arrive in Denver, the cultural capital of the Neutral Zone, with a bus full of Americana acquisitions Childan hopes to sell in his shop. Nearly everything (including the bus itself) is stolen by a gang on motorcycles, and when Childan prepares to return to California, Ed is hesitant to leave, as he has started a relationship with a local man named Jack. Childan returns to San Francisco to find his shop illegally occupied by a Japanese family. Kido promises to return it to Childan if he will reveal where Ed is, as a means to find Frank. Kido tracks down Frank, and ritually beheads him in the former Manzanar concentration camp. Smith blackmails Hoover and turns the table on Rockwell, who is exiled to Havana, German Cuba, by Himmler; Smith later has Rockwell killed, and is promoted to Reichsmarschall. In his new capacity, Smith is introduced to a secret program, headed by Nazi scientist Josef Mengele and started from studies on a woman who died and returned from another world, to send people (and Wehrmacht troops) through to alternate Earths using a machine housed in the Lackawanna mines, where, according to string theory, an anomaly makes such multiverse travel possible. Juliana has shown Joe's secret Reich files to Tagomi, including details of the multiverse-machine, who uses them to pressure Smith to drop the embargo. Juliana begins experiencing the memories of one of her counterparts from another Earth, who was killed by Joe in the mines. She organizes an expedition with some members of the resistance to destroy the machine. Smith and Himmler witness a test of the machine, which is moderately successful; one human subject appears to travel, but several others are torn apart. Himmler immediately lifts the oil embargo, to avoid the Japanese putting any distractions on the ongoing multiverse-machine experiments. Smith's daughter Jennifer is now old enough to submit to the mandatory medical examination that revealed Thomas' illness. Fearful of the possible results and hoping for a postponement, Helen flees with her daughters to a beach house. Himmler declares the beginning of Jahr Null with the Luftwaffe's bombing of the Statue of Liberty, which incites gleeful riots by Nazi Youth in New York City. Himmler sends Nicole to a re-education camp in Germany, shortly before Wyatt and a sniper colleague start shooting, hitting Himmler but missing Smith. Juliana and Hawthorne Abendsen – the Man in the High Castle – are captured by the Nazis. Smith learns from Abendsen (who is revealed to be one of his fellow US Army Signal Corps soldiers) that people can only travel, including through the Nazi's multiverse-machine, if their counterpart on the destination Earth has died and "left a void". Smith rushes to stop Juliana from escaping, and shoots her just as she travels, disappearing before his eyes.-->

Main

 * Alexa Davalos as Juliana Crain, a young woman from San Francisco who is outwardly happy living under Japanese control. She is an expert in aikido and is friendly with the Japanese people who live in San Francisco. As Juliana learns of The Man in the High Castle and his films, she begins to rebel.
 * Rupert Evans as Frank Frink (seasons 1–3), Juliana's boyfriend at the beginning of the series. He works in a factory creating replicas of prewar American pistols, and creates original jewelry and sketches on his own time. Frank's grandfather was Jewish, making him a target of discrimination. When Juliana vanishes just after the police kill her sister, Frank is taken into custody. Soon after, he turns against the state and works with the American Resistance.
 * Luke Kleintank as Joe Blake (seasons 1–3), a new recruit to the underground American Resistance who is actually an agent working for the SS, under Obergruppenführer John Smith. He transports a reel of the forbidden film The Grasshopper Lies Heavy to the neutral Rocky Mountain States as part of his mission to infiltrate the Resistance. He meets Juliana and quickly falls in love with her, leading to him questioning his allegiance to the Reich.
 * DJ Qualls as Ed McCarthy (seasons 1–3), Frank's co-worker and friend. He closely follows politics and cares very much about Juliana and Frank's well-being. It is revealed in season three that Ed is gay.
 * Joel de la Fuente as Takeshi Kido, the chief inspector who is the ruthless head of the Kempeitai stationed in San Francisco
 * Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Nobusuke Tagomi (seasons 1–3), the Trade Minister of the Pacific States of America. His true loyalties are ambiguous throughout the first season.
 * Rufus Sewell as John Smith, an SS Obergruppenführer, later promoted to Oberst-Gruppenführer, and then to Reichsmarschall of the colony of North America (near series end becoming Reichsführer of a newly autonomous North American Reich) who is investigating the Resistance in New York. He is a natural-born American who had served in the US Army Signal Corps. He initially lives a comfortable suburban life with a wife and three children but subsequently moves the family to Manhattan.
 * Chelah Horsdal as Helen Smith (seasons 2–4; recurring season 1), wife of John Smith and queen bee of the New York Nazi social set. Natural born American before the war, she plays an enormous role in John Smith choosing an allegiance to the Nazis. She later faces a crisis in the consequences to that decision when her own son gives his life for the regime and her whole world collapses.
 * Brennan Brown as Robert Childan (seasons 2–4; recurring season 1), an antique store owner who makes secret deals with Frank
 * Callum Keith Rennie as Gary Connell (season 2), leader of the West Coast Resistance movement and enforcer for Abendsen
 * Bella Heathcote as Nicole Dörmer (seasons 2–3), a young Berlin-born filmmaker who crosses paths with Joe, and moves to the American Reich in the third season
 * Michael Gaston as Mark Sampson (season 3; recurring season 1; guest season 2), a Jewish friend of Frank's living in San Francisco, who later relocates to the Neutral Zone.
 * Jason O'Mara as Wyatt Price, also known as Liam (season 3–4), an Irishman who is a black market supplier of information to Juliana
 * Frances Turner as Bell Mallory (season 4), the leader of the Black Communist Rebellion (BCR) in San Francisco

Recurring

 * Aaron Blakely as Erich Raeder (seasons 1–3), an SS-Sturmbannführer working with Smith
 * Carsten Norgaard as Rudolph Wegener (season 1), a disillusioned high-ranking Nazi official who trades secrets with Tagomi
 * Rick Worthy as Lemuel "Lem" Washington, the owner of the Sunrise Diner in Canon City and member of the Resistance
 * Camille Sullivan as Karen Vecchione (seasons 1–2), a leader of the Pacific States branch of the Resistance
 * Lee Shorten as Hiroyuki Yoshida (seasons 1–2), a sergeant and Inspector Kido's right-hand man
 * Arnold Chun as Kotomichi, Tagomi's aide-de-camp, who came from the parallel world after his hometown, Nagasaki, was destroyed by an American atomic bomb
 * Bernhard Forcher as Hugo Reiss (season 1), the German ambassador to the Japanese Pacific States
 * Christine Chatelain as Laura Crothers (season 1), Frank's sister, who is executed as a threat to force a confession from Frank
 * Hank Harris as Randall Becker (season 1), a member of the Pacific States branch of the Resistance
 * Allan Havey as the Origami Man (season 1), a Sicherheitsdienst (SD) operative sent to Canon City to eliminate members of the Resistance
 * Burn Gorman as the Marshal (season 1), a bounty hunter searching for concentration camp escapees
 * Shaun Ross as the Shoe Shine Boy (season 1), a young albino man living in Canon City
 * Rob LaBelle as Carl (season 1), a book store clerk in Canon City who is revealed to be a concentration camp escapee, David P. Frees
 * Geoffrey Blake as Jason Meyer (season 1), a Jewish member of the Resistance
 * Daisuke Tsuji as the Crown Prince of Japan (season 1)
 * Mayumi Yoshida as the Crown Princess of Japan (seasons 1, 4)
 * Amy Okuda as Christine Tanaka (season 1), an office worker working in the Nippon Building
 * Neal Bledsoe as SS-Captain Connolly (season 1), an American SS officer serving under John Smith, later revealed to be a spy working for Reinhard Heydrich
 * Hiro Kanagawa as Taishi Okamura (seasons 1–2), the leader of a Yakuza based in the Pacific States
 * Louis Ozawa Changchien as Paul Kasoura (seasons 1–2), a wealthy lawyer who collects prewar American memorabilia
 * Tao Okamoto as Betty Kasoura (season 1), Paul's wife
 * Stephen Root as Hawthorne Abendsen / the Man in the High Castle (seasons 2–4), the head of the American antifascist resistance, creating films set in other worlds
 * Sebastian Roché as Martin Heusmann (seasons 2–3), Joe's estranged father and a high-ranking Reichsminister in the Nazi government
 * Cara Mitsuko as Sarah (season 2), a Japanese American Resistance member, Frank's confidante and a survivor of the Manzanar concentration camp
 * Tate Donovan as George Dixon (season 2), Trudy's biological father and a member of the resistance in New York City
 * Michael Hogan as Hagan (seasons 2–3), an ex-priest and leader in the San Francisco Resistance
 * Tzi Ma as General Hidehisa Onoda (season 2), a leading member of the Japanese Army
 * Giles Panton as Billy Turner (season 3–4), a Nazi Reich American advertising executive who is working with Nicole Dörmer to "erase" the memories of the former U.S. from the minds of the citizens in the Nazi Reich America
 * Ann Magnuson as Caroline Abendsen (season 3–4), the wife of Hawthorne Abendsen
 * Laura Mennell as Thelma Harris (season 3), a closeted lesbian gossip column reporter in New York City
 * Janet Kidder as Lila Jacobs (season 3), one of the many Jews protected in a Catholic commune in the Neutral Zone
 * Jeffrey Nordling as Daniel Ryan (season 3), a Jungian therapist employed to treat Helen Smith's grief following the death of her son Thomas
 * Akie Kotabe as Nakamura (season 3), a Japanese-American sergeant of mixed ethnicity who works under Kido as Yoshida's replacement
 * Tamlyn Tomita as Tamiko Watanabe (season 3–4), an Okinawan-Hawaiian painter who befriends Tagomi
 * Eijiro Ozaki as Inokuchi (season 3–4), an admiral and the head of the Imperial Japanese Navy fleet stationed in the San Francisco Bay
 * James Neate as Jack (season 3), a man in the Neutral Zone with whom Ed McCarthy becomes romantically involved
 * Sen Mitsuji as Toru Kido (season 4), Inspector Kido's son who suffers from PTSD
 * Chika Kanamoto as Yukiko (season 4), Childan's assistant and later wife
 * Clé Bennett as Elijah (season 4), Bell Mallory's lover and one of the members of the BCR
 * David Harewood as Equiano Hampton (season 4), the leader of the BCR
 * Rachel Nichols as Martha (season 4), Helen Smith's "wife-companion" assigned by the Reich to keep an eye on her
 * Michael Hagiwara as Okami (season 4), a Yakuza boss operating in the JPS
 * Bruce Locke as Yamori (season 4), a hardline Japanese general in favour of continuing the occupation of the JPS
 * Eric Lange as Whitcroft (season 4), a general and John Smith's second-in-command
 * Marc Rissmann as Wilhelm Goertzmann (season 4), an Obergruppenführer from Berlin
 * Rich Ting as Iijima (season 4), a Japanese captain

John Smith's family

 * Quinn Lord as Thomas Smith, John and Helen's son and the eldest child. A member of the Hitler Youth, it is later revealed that he has inherited a form of muscular dystrophy (facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy) from his father's side of the family. Learning this, he turns himself in to the Reich Sanitation Services and is euthanized. In the fourth season, Lord plays Thomas in an alternate universe where the Axis lost WWII.
 * Gracyn Shinyei as Amy Smith, John and Helen's daughter
 * Genea Charpentier as Jennifer Smith, John and Helen's daughter

Juliana Crain's family

 * Daniel Roebuck as Arnold Walker (seasons 1–2), Juliana's step-father and Trudy's father
 * Macall Gordon as Anne Crain Walker (seasons 1–2), Juliana's mother who is still bitter about losing her husband in World War II
 * Conor Leslie as Trudy Walker (seasons 1–3), Juliana's half-sister who is shot dead by the Kempeitai. However, she is shown alive at the end of the second season, revealed in the third season to be from an alternate timeline in which it was Juliana who died.

Nobusuke Tagomi's family

 * Yukari Komatsu as Michiko Tagomi (season 2), Nobusuke's wife
 * Eddie Shin as Noriaki Tagomi (season 2), Nobusuke and Michiko's son

Historical characters

 * Wolf Muser as Adolf Hitler (seasons 1–2), the leader of the Greater Nazi Reich
 * Ray Proscia as Reinhard Heydrich (seasons 1–2), an SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer
 * Keone Young as Shunroku Hata (season 1), a field marshal
 * Kenneth Tigar as Heinrich Himmler (seasons 2–4), an SS-Reichsführer and later the new Führer
 * Lisa Paxton as Eva Braun (season 2), Hitler's wife, at his side on his deathbed
 * David Furr as George Lincoln Rockwell (season 3), the Reichsmarschall of German-controlled America, plotting against John Smith
 * William Forsythe as J. Edgar Hoover (seasons 3–4), the director of the American Reich Bureau of Investigation (the Nazi counterpart of the real-life FBI), co-plotting with Rockwell
 * John Hans Tester as Josef Mengele (seasons 3–4), the head of studies about trans-universe travel, realizing an enormous traveling machine
 * Gwynyth Walsh as Margarete Himmler (season 4), Himmler's wife and the head of the Reich Red Cross
 * Timothy V. Murphy as Adolf Eichmann (season 4), an SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer
 * Hiromoto Ida as Hirohito (season 4), the Japanese emperor

Development
In 2010, it was announced that the BBC would co-produce a four-part TV adaptation of The Man in the High Castle for BBC One together with Headline Pictures, FremantleMedia Enterprises and Scott Free Films. Director Ridley Scott was to act as executive producer of the adaptation by Howard Brenton. On February 11, 2013, Variety reported that Syfy was producing the book as a four-part miniseries, with Frank Spotnitz and Scott as executive producers, co-produced with Scott Free Productions, Headline Pictures and Electric Shepherd Prods.

On October 1, 2014, Amazon Studios began filming the pilot episode for a potential television drama to be broadcast on their Prime web video streaming service. Adapted by Spotnitz, the project was produced for Amazon by Scott, David Zucker and Jordan Sheehan for Scott Free, Stewart Mackinnon and Christian Baute for Headline Pictures, Isa Hackett and Kalen Egan for Electric Shepherd and Spotnitz's Big Light Productions. The pilot was released by Amazon Studios on January 15, 2015. Amazon Studios' production process is somewhat different from those of other conventional television channels in that they produce pilot episodes of a number of different prospective programs, then release them and gather data on their success. The most promising shows are then picked up as regular series. On February 18, 2015, Amazon announced that The Man in the High Castle was green-lit along with four other series, and a full season would be produced.

The pilot, which premiered in January 2015, was Amazon's "most-watched since the original series development program began". The next month, Amazon ordered a ten-episode season, which was released in November to positive reviews. A second season of ten episodes premiered in December 2016, and a third season was announced a few weeks later. Amazon announced in January 2017 that they were bringing on new executive producer and showrunner Eric Overmyer for the third season to replace Spotnitz, who had departed from the show during the second season. Season three was released on October 5, 2018. In July 2018, it was announced at San Diego Comic-Con that the series had been renewed for a fourth season, which was confirmed in February 2019 to be the last one of the series. Daniel Percival and David Scarpa took over as showrunners for the final season.

Filming
Principal filming for the pilot took place in Seattle, with the city standing in for San Francisco and locations in New York City. Filming also took place in Roslyn, Washington, with the town standing in for Canon City and other Neutral Zone locations. Sites used in Seattle include the Seattle Center Monorail, the Paramount Theatre, a newspaper office in the Pike Place Market area, as well as various buildings in the city's Capitol Hill, International District, and Georgetown neighborhoods. In Roslyn, the production used external shots of the Roslyn Cafe, along with several local businesses and scenery.

For the series, filming took place in Vancouver, British Columbia. Specific filming locations included West Georgia Street in the city's downtown core, and the promenade of the Coast Capital Savings building in April 2015. In May and June 2015, filming also took place at the University of British Columbia. Exterior shots of Hohenwerfen Castle in Werfen, Austria, were filmed in September 2015 for the tenth episode of the first season. The interior scene where Hitler and Rudolph Wegener meet was shot on the ground floor of the Bell Tower.

Release
The first and second episodes were screened at a special Comic-Con event. The season premiered on November 20, 2015. The second season was released on December 16, 2016. The third season was released on October 5, 2018. The fourth season was released on November 15, 2019.

Reception
The pilot was Amazon's "most-watched since the original series development program began". The first season received critical acclaim. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an approval rating of 95% based on reviews from 62 critics, with an average rating of 7.5 out of 10. The site's critical consensus states, "By executive producer Ridley Scott, The Man in the High Castle is unlike anything else on TV, with an immediately engrossing plot driven by quickly developed characters in a fully realized post-WWII dystopia." Metacritic gives the first season a score of 77 out of 100, based on reviews from 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Meredith Woerner from io9 wrote, "I can honestly say I loved this pilot. It's an impressive, streamlined undertaking of a fairly complicated and very beloved novel." Matt Fowler from IGN gave it 9.2 out of 10 and described the series as "a superb, frightening experience filled with unexpected twists and (some sci-fi) turns". Brian Moylan of The Guardian was positive and praised the convincing depiction as well as the complex and gripping plot. The Los Angeles Times described the pilot as "provocative" and "smartly adapted by The X-Files' Frank Spotnitz". The Daily Telegraph said it was "absorbing", and Wired called it "must-see viewing". Entertainment Weekly said it was "engrossing" and "a triumph in world-building", cheering, "The Man in the High Castle is king." After the season, Rolling Stone included it on a list of the 40 best science fiction television shows of all time. Amazon subsequently announced it was the service's most-streamed original series and had been renewed for a second season.

The second season received mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an approval rating of 64%, based on reviews from 25 critics with an average rating of 7 out of 10. The site's critical consensus states, "Although its plot is admittedly unwieldy, The Man in the High Castle's second season expands its fascinating premise in powerful new directions, bolstered by stunning visuals, strong performances, and intriguing new possibilities." Metacritic gave season 2 a score of 62 out of 100, based on reviews from ten critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

The third season was met with positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an approval rating of 86%, based on reviews from 21 critics with an average rating of 7.4 out of 10. The site's critical consensus states, "The crafty addition of minor sci-fi elements and a terrific William Forsythe to the show's already engrossing narrative make The Man in the High Castle's third season another worthy binge." Metacritic gives season 3 a score of 70 out of 100, based on reviews from five critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

The fourth season received positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an approval rating of 92%, based on reviews from 13 critics with an average rating of 7.2 out of 10. The site's critical consensus states, "The Man in the High Castle finds something close to closure, wrapping up major threads to bring everything full circle in sufficiently dramatic fashion."

Advertising controversy
As part of an advertising campaign for the season one release, an entire New York City Subway car was covered with Nazi and Imperial Japanese imagery, as seen in the show, including multiple US flags with the Imperial Eagle symbol in place of the 50 stars (a change from the swastika used on the flag in the show), and multiple flags of the fictional Pacific States. In response to criticism from "state lawmakers and city leaders", the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) released a statement saying that there were no grounds to reject the ads because the neutral content subway ad standards prohibit only advertising that is a political advertisement or disparages an individual or group. MTA spokesperson Kevin Ortiz stated, "The MTA is a government agency and can't accept or reject ads based on how we feel about them; we have to follow the standards approved by our board. Please note they're commercial ads." Spokesperson Adam Lisberg said, "This advertising, whether you find it distasteful or not, obviously they're not advertising Nazism; they're advertising a TV show."

After complaints from New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, initial reports indicated that Amazon pulled the advertisement from the subway. It was later announced that it was the MTA, not Amazon, that pulled the ad because of pressure from Cuomo.