What did you all think of HBO’s new series Rome?
Rome
by John Cole| 25 Comments
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jobiuspublius
Haven’t seen it, but, I wondering if it’s going to be another leftist work program for B-rate, retired, and unemployed english actors.
jobiuspublius
“It was a strictly personal morality, and whether or not an action is wrong would depend on whether people more powerful than you would approve.”
======================================================
And why is that interesting? Because of the togas!
Matt
Great production design, but it didn’t really grab me.
Stormy70
Ok, I thought it was pretty good. I like that they include all the rituals and decadence of the times. It’s not every day that one sees an oxen bleeding all over a major character, or three cruxifictions in the same episode. I will probably watch it since it promises some interesting senarios with all the violence and {ahem} other stuff. Two thumbs up. Oh, and the soldiers in their uniforms? Well played, Wardrobe Lady, well played.
jobiuspublius
Grand Theft Oxo
Kirby
Why is it that in any sort of historical drama all the characters have English accents?
B. Ross
Clearly they were all followers of Jane Fonda. Before she married that total Republican. Well, the kind of Republican who could balance budgets and not totally lie themselves silly. Was there ever such a Republican who ran for office? John Lindsay, for one. OK, so there never were any more. Oh well. The bad kind killed them off. Oh well.
Stormy70
It’s better than Brad Pitt in Troy. I wanted to punch him in his pouty mouth the entire time. Ughh.
KC
English accents, the never ending mystery of period pieces.
Russ
So, what accent is used in historical dramas made in the UK?
My money would be on Welsh, just for the fun of it.
;-)
Richard Bennett
It’s a joint production with the BBC, so there are lots of Brits in it. I learned by careful observation of this episode that Roman women shaved their muffs, something they never taught me in school.
Rick Moran
Interesting but flawed. Would you have followed that miserable excuse for a Ceasar? Here’s a guy that changed the world and he comes off as a complete non-entity.
The political machinations are fascinating. That alone will keep me interested for a while.
Nate
Whether they’re employed or unemployed I can’t answer for, but many of them are damn good and decidedly not B-rate. Many of them are stage actors and very accomplished, whatever you want to say about Rome itself. Unemployment is a dangerous way to measure talent; will Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise ever be unemployed? Hardly. Are they good? No.
Andrew Reeves
Why is it that dramatizations about ancient Rome almost always tend to deal with the palace intrigues of the Julio-Claudian emperors? In an empire that lasted from 753 B.C. to 1453 and at it’s height covered the equivalent of one seventh of the land area of the continental United States, the Dramas with British Accents always return to the same palace intruiges of the same seventy years.
Why not an exciting drama about Constantine? Or the crisis of the Third Century? Or the Commenoi? Or the Nika Riots?
One thing that I appreciated about Gladiator was that it dealt with a period other than the first century.
Okay, done being grumpy.
jobiuspublius
Old mobsters in togas.
Luddite
Old mobsters in togas.
Yes, but what are they wearing underneath those togas? :-)
ratan
Did any of the characters say “cocksucker” every other word? ;-)
Nate
Because you don’t have those “delicious” moments when a Roman steps up to the table and a friend says, “Hello, Brutus” and people at home go “Ooooh, that’s Brutus!” The whole project hangs on Caesar, and it’s much easier to get people to watch Romke if they know *some* historical figure.
But I’m with you. The other eras would be great. One wonders why even a Christian network hasn’t filmed the story of Constantine.
TallDave
ratan,
Damn I miss Deadwood.
Those should be some interesting elections next season.
Mike
“ratan Says:
Did any of the characters say “cocksucker” every other word?”
Ah, Deadwood, great show.
None of that,but they did manage to fit in two nice nekkid females (mother and daughter no less) in the hour show. By my standards, that’s a success. ;)
Seeing the French (Gauls) surrender yet again to a foreign power always seems to do my heart good as well…
Vlad
“It’s better than Brad Pitt in Troy.”
Pitt would’ve made a great Ajax, if they’d told the story straight.
Stormy70
Can. Not. Wait.
Worth the price of admission right there.
Gregory Markle
Watched it last night with Brian and I still feeling a bit “meh” about it. It had it’s moments but overall it was terribly uninteresting. The same old intrigues we’ve seen rehashed time and again without any unique insight. As for the sex and nudity…been done…the movie Caligula bests ANYTHING they’re going to get away with even on HBO!!
Just an observation but I really thought the title credits were exceptionally crap-tastic…as opposed to two shows I love(d) on HBO, “Six Feet Under” (R.I.P.) and “Deadwood”, which had/have some of the best intro credits I’ve ever seen.
I really tried to like it and I’ll give it a chance. It wasn’t downright bad but given the amount of time this has been in production and pre-production I really wasn’t impressed. It really made me long for whatever the producer of “Deadwood” was thinking of when he went to HBO some years ago to pitch HIS series based in Rome…which they rejected because they already had this series in pre-production. Well, he managed to convert the idea to another time and place (Deadwood, post-Civil War) and produce two seasons of some of the best television ever made in the time it took them to get this lump of “blah” to the screen…it makes one wonder what could have been!
ThomasD
A slow opener that seems to be following the Deadwood template of using established historical figures to get the ball rolling. My wife didn’t seem to get as much out of the first episode as she is not so heavily steeped in late republic history. I am approaching this with something of an academic interest – how much history does HBO think it needs to feed the audience in order to have a viable vehicle for developing and maintaining interesting plot lines?
Julius Caesar certainly did not cut an imposing figure. I suspect this was purposeful on the part of the creators to avoid having his presence upstage the other, presumably main, characters.
Halffasthero
I liked the show but it tried to get too many things going at the same time. I agree that Ceasar was a little weak. Their choice for Octavian is ecellent, however.
And I think they should have chosen another period just for the change of pace. The time of Hannibal would have been great! A nice outline of why the omans feared him so much.