Catch-22

Catch-22 is a satirical dark comedy miniseries based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Joseph Heller. It premiered on May 17, 2019, on Hulu in the United States. The series stars Christopher Abbott, Kyle Chandler, Hugh Laurie, and George Clooney, who is also an executive producer alongside Grant Heslov, Luke Davies, David Michôd, Richard Brown, Steve Golin, and Ellen Kuras. The series was written by Davies and Michôd and directed by Clooney, Heslov, and Kuras, with each directing two episodes. Premise John Yossarian (Christopher Abbott) is a United States Army Air Forces bombardier in World War II, furious that thousands of people are trying to kill him and that his own army keeps increasing the number of missions he must fly. He is trapped by the bureaucratic rule Catch-22, which considers a willingness to fly dangerous combat missions to be insane, yet a request to be relieved of duty on the grounds of insanity to be the process of a rational mind, so any such request must be denied. Yossarian chose bombardier, hoping the war would finish before his lengthy training but now sits exposed in the nose of a B-25, dropping bombs on enemy territory who are trying to kill him. He tried to avoid flying by feigning illness, sabotaging his intercom, poisoning everyone at the base or clandestinely moving the bomb line so it appears their target has already been captured. The events occur in the Mediterranean theatre of World War II while the fictional 256th US Army Air Squadron is based on the (fictionalized) island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea, and conducting bombing raids over heavily defended fascist controlled Italy.