Catch-22 is a novel (one of the greatest all-time, according to Time magazine), a movie, the name of a very good episode of Lost and a less-good Pink song, and finally, some 50-plus years after the book was published, a TV series.
And not just any TV series, either, but a limited series on Hulu starring George Clooney in his first recurring role since E.R. The rest of the cast isn’t too shabby, either: there’s Christopher Abbott, Hugh Laurie, and Kyle Chandler as Colonel Cathcart (the role Clooney was originally going to play — Coach Taylor is a strong fallback option). Hulu has released an official trailer for the six-episode limited series (watch it above), showcasing its darkly satirical tone.
Here’s more on Catch-22, in case you didn’t read the novel in high school because you were too busy watching George Clooney on Roseanne:
Catch-22 is the story of the incomparable, artful dodger, Yossarian, a US Air Force bombardier in World War II who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy, but rather his own army which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to avoid his military assignments, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule which specifies that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers which are real and immediate is the process of a rational mind; a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but a request to be removed from duty is evidence of sanity and therefore makes him ineligible to be relieved from duty.
Catch-22 premieres on Hulu on Friday, May 17.
