Stream It Or Skip It: ‘War Sailor’ On Netflix, About Norwegian Sailors Forced To Defend Their Country When WWII Breaks Out

World War II has always felt like a war where the horrors and drudgery of battle were hidden from the public, at least in the U.S. The soldiers and sailors came home and built lives for themselves and their families, and the only things they talked about were their proudest moments as well as the friends they lost. The horror of war just never seemed to be a subject of conversation. But that might not have been the experience of every participant, especially ones that were from other countries. A new Netflix drama depicts two Norwegian merchant sailors who were on the water when WWII broke out, and became part of the war effort whether they wanted to or not.

WAR SAILOR: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “SINGAPORE, 1948.” A man walks through a building asking if they’ve seen the man in the picture. When he finds the man, he’s lying on the ground, half conscious with a scraggly beard. He identified his friend as “Freddy.”

The Gist: “1939. Bergen. Seven months before the German occupation of Norway.” Alfred “Freddy” Garnes (Kristoffer Joner) and his friend Sigbjørn “Wally” Kvalvåg (Pål Sverre Hagen) work on the local docks, but paying gigs are scarce; the two have worked one day in the past three weeks. There is work to be had, but it’s on a merchant ship sailing to New York, which will take both of them away from home for 18 months.

For Wally, who’s single, the decision is easy, but it’s tougher for Freddy, who is leaving his wife Cecilia (Ine Marie Wilmann) and 3 kids behind. But he has to make money somewhere. His daughter, seeing stories of the Germans sinking Norwegian ships in the Atlantic, thinks it’s unsafe for him to go, but Freddy ensures her he won’t be going where the Germans are.

A year later, they’re on the ship, and they’re spending almost as much time saving fellow sailors who have abandoned ships destroyed by the Germans than actually moving. Freddy wants the ship to stop and save people in the water, but his captain tells him that staying still makes them an easy target for German subs. The captain also has other news: The Norwegian government wants the merchant ships to help in the war effort, shipping material to the British. Anyone scheduled to go home has to stay, with no timeframe as to when they can return.

Freddy and Wally aren’t exactly happy to be drafted into a war effort, but they decide that they’ll do it for the people in Norway and the kids in England, not for the “fat pigs in white shirts” that ordered them into this predicament.

Because of this involuntary draft, money hasn’t been flowing home to German-occupied Bergen, and Freddy’s family has been selling wood to get by.

Wally, Freddy, cook Hannah Wiig (Alexandra Gjerpen), a 15 year-old sailor named Aksel (Leon Tobias Slettbakk), and a few other crew members transfer off the ship in Liverpool in 1941. Shortly after the crew of their former ship departs, it’s sunk by the Germans, with everyone aboard perishing. But it won’t be long before they, too are in danger, as we see Wally and Freddy trying to save people from being pulled out of a massive hole in their ship’s hull. They limp to safety in Malta in 1942, shellshocked and weary.

We then cut to New York in 1944, where the crew is loading armaments onto their new ship. Everyone except Hannah and an Aksel, who are going home, are ordered to keep loading the ship in order to join a caravan. But when Freddy and Wally are told that the last caravan lost two-thirds of its ships, their dedication to this task starts to more than waver.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The desperation of the sailors in War Sailor reminds us of how isolated the sailors were on the German sub in Das Boot.

Our Take: Written and directed by Gunnar Vikene, War Sailor (Original title: Krigsseileren) is supposed to not just be a treatise on how being involuntarily roped into the World War II effort wore on the sailors on Norwegian merchant ships, but how being in this war effort affected these sailors in the subsequent years.

The first two episodes really lean on the first part of that equation, and it somehow goes very slowly while at the same time skipping much of the grind that wore down these sailors for the six years that they were away from home.

It certainly is a strange combination, where you’re supposed to really get a feel for how Wally, Freddy and their shipmates are always trying to weigh the idea of soldering on or going back home, where not only will they be labeled deserters, but they’ll have to live under the thumb of German occupation. Vikene doesn’t exactly strike that balance; the group of sailors he concentrates on don’t quite give us that sense that they’ve lived through this grind for the five years the first episode covers.

What we’re more intrigued with is the lives of the two men and their shipmates after the war. We’re used to the American narrative, which is the soldiers and sailors came home, bought suburban homes with the help of the G.I. Bill, and built the middle class as we know it. But there must have been people who came home with what we now know as PTSD, right? Not everyone who went to Europe or Japan wanted to be there. And seeing how being drawn into a war they didn’t want to fight will affect Wally and Freddy. Judging by that first scene, it seems as if one will be OK and one definitely won’t. That journey will definitely perk up what starts out as a draggy, grim narrative.

Sex and Skin: Freddy and his wife Cecilia try to make love the last night before he sets sail, but they tumble off the bed and are interrupted by the baby crying.

Parting Shot: Wally, Freddy and their shipmates agree that this is the end of the line for them. “We’re going home,” Freddy says.

Sleeper Star: Wilmann’s character Cecilia will play a larger role in the second and third episodes, as Bergen is attacked by the British due to the German submarine bunker there, then as Freddy comes home and deals with his war experience.

Most Pilot-y Line: Both Willy and Freddy call Freddy’s kids “brats” to their faces. Is that a term of endearment in Norway?

Our Call: STREAM IT, but only if you think you can slog through the grim first two episodes of War Sailor. The sailors’ postwar experiences feel like they’ll be way more interesting than what they went through during the war.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.