Rome - New HBO show

I've never seen a bad HBO show so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt before seeing this for myself.

it is a co-production between HBO and BBC!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/21/nrome21.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/08/21/ixhome.html

Most of the cast seem very British. Brutus seems almost American.

Roddy McDowall's performance has scarred me for life on that front.

the show was flat.

Mr teeny and I had a good discussion on the authenticity of the landing strips on the ladies--I pointed out that the roman men seemed to favor shaving their faces and so perhaps the ladies shaved as well, but he maintained that if that was the case, it would probably be all or nothing. I was frankly stunned that he did not know of some poem or whatnot that would settle the debate.

M.: Because nudity was more common in Rome than it is here. Public baths alone (which were not always unisex), I mean!

blood and landing strips aside, what i liked, and what i'm hoping the hbo-nastiness allows more windows into, are moments where the historicity of the show can seem really alien, ie where the attitudes and motivations of ppl can be shown to be actually "classical" ie pre-enlightenment and pre-christian. there were a few flashes of this, the best one i wish i remembered better, but Octavian says something like "I'm going alone?" and Atia responds yes blah blah... a few lines later she mentions which slaves he's taking, threatens one to protect him with his life, and this was no dissonance at all: alone = your slave retinue. similarly, she was fucking the horseman with all of these people milling around her bed: there is no private self, and they didn't count anyway.

I don't see how this will work as a series on HBO, cock and vadge aside. (I know it's nice that they can let it all hang out, but HBO needs to step off the naked train, it's a bit of a cliche.) Hopefully it gets better as they have time to flesh out individual plots and follow characters, rather than telling the I, Claudius story.

Wouldn't it have been better to see the story of the Pompey/Caesar/betrayal/Civil War through the eyes of a set of characters not in the history books? I guess it's a harder sell for $100mn, but that story through a minor aristocratic family with sons on both sides, following their slaves as real characters etc. sounds much more interesting than upper-echelon aristocratic decadence and politicking.

but really, rome so far has been awesome, sex, violence, and enough history to keep a nerd like me happy

That opening theme still sucks though. Why they didn't go with a Mtn Goats song is beyond me. (There were a few moments where Marc Antony looked like J0hn in this last ep!)

I want to know how they're going to get Lucius Vorenus back into the army. I thought maybe Pompey's boy would kill (hotttt) Niobe and that would get him back into the Legion, but no dice.

Very true about Niobe. Very, very hott and she reminds me of a mosaic from Pompei too.

I'm becoming fond of the Pullo character, strangely, and some of the dialogue between Lucius and he is classic, such as when, after Pullo has advised Lucius to attend to the little button above his wife's c*nt, Lucius asks in horror and indignation how Pullo knows about it.

anyway this is going a bit slow and the atia stuff is still v lame.

i liked all the religion! the augurs, the shrines, candles everywhere, and everyone treating it like real actual stuff.

That was pretty interesting! Mostly because you'd expect the bit about why people would join the army to come at the beginning, rather than in the middle.

How long is this series supposed to go?

What is/are Extras?

Or that B-52s song

Pullo and Young Augustus getting together was great, though.

"Or that B-52s song"
Rock Lobster?

i've said upthread that i liked how the show places religion. it's all very pagan and nasty and corrupt but at the same time very serious and real (to vorenus especially) but how much of it will turn out to be actual? the entrail reader promised niobe her husband would be rich, and sevilia (sp?) cursed gaius and atia (scary scratching on lead sheets, very cool)...how much of this will the plot actualize? other than the 'e tu' obv.

much repsec to indira varma's stunt-boob, whoever she was.

The last episode seemed week and poorly directed. With the omnipresence of sex in Rome, it hardly seems like Octavian would have been as afraid and ignorant of the act as they made him.

Still, someone gets to pad out his resume with "Appeared in HBO's Rome as 'Slave with Very Large (Onscreen) Penis'". That's worth something.

[special voice]he did actually go by the name Octavius for at least some of his life.[/special voice]

And YES Niobe is bad!!! In a good way. She was bad in Kama Sutra and still is.

and how badass is Marc Antony? having whores fight for his pleasure, what a monster. how cool.

Atia and her family/soap opera (aside from Octavian) remains a weak point of the show, even more boring now that they're irrelevant to the episodes themselves. There's something wrong with Brutus's mouth, I think, or maybe he just talks funny.

I'm not too keen on where the show is headed based on next week's preview - seems like they're compressing the civil war/Caesar meets Cleopatra (getting Lucius Vorenus's sloppy seconds by the look of it) more than is necessary. I wonder if maybe they'll actually finish this season with Caesar's assassination and begin the next season with Octavian becoming Augustus?

It was my thought also, that they'd end this season with Caesar being killed, what with how fast things are moving. I'm not sure how well Max Pirkis would fit the role of the older Octavian so soon though, if this is the case.

I guess what I'm saying here is I'm worried it peaked about two weeks ago and we're on a downward slide now.

I suspect what we're going to see next season is Pullo/Vorenus being split apart by loyalties. Vorenus swore fealty to Marc Antony in order to return to the XIII, Pullo has his in with the future Emperor.

The torrent took forever, and I had to find another one. Still, despite the battle scene, despite the lameness of the new Octavia story, and despite the ridiculous effect at the end -- let us say, despite being directed by TIMOTHY VAN PATTEN! -- it was a good episode. Dude with the fake nose was great, at least historically/visually. Casting the shows creators as gods within the actual show, kinda hokey, but I suppose it explains a few things.

i did think something was off about that conversation. the scene where pompey senses that he can play on vorenus' old school pieties to save himself i thought was well orchestrated, but then v's subsequent explanation to caesar didn't ring right; wouldn't he have expressed the same romey honor ("i could not enslave or kill such a man, sah" etc) which caesar would undoubtedly agree (he did kind of say this but eh). considering the historical record shows caesar weeping at the death of pompey and deposing ptolemy b/c of it (have not seen tonights ep yet, it's in the pipe) + his concern to bring cicero & brutus back into the fold... it seemed caes' anger was inserted just to have that gag answer it.

god, i LOVE this show. im so sad i don't get a new one next week.

Hated the way they handled the siege and victory again - "blah blah blah IT'S BEEN A YEAR blah blah blah CAESAR IS VICTORIOUS." I know there are major budget constraints, but there's gotta be a better way to do that.

otherwise, exxxcellent ep!! wanton cleopatra ok by me, no use re-historicizing that, added junkie indie frisson just icing on the cake.

speaking of shakespeare, i was waiting to see the stoic brutus emerge, since they started him as a toff. reunion with mama very well done. it's a cold world!

There were gratuitous lesbian interpolations! Ah well.

There will be no episode next week? Why?

That was perhaps the best directed episode so far, though. Even Atia was pleasant enough.

What did you expect, the entire cast is British after all

I'm actually surprised they don't do more co-productions in this vein.

isnt he the best charachter on the show? I love when caesar asks for his opinion and he PLOTS.

vorenus for magistrate is pretty inspired even if the "inevitable seperation" of v. and pullo is kind of zzz. and all the stuff w octavian was terrific.

They got lazy on the passage of time again - "Oh, say, future Augustus YOU'VE BEEN GONE TWO YEARS. YES, TWO YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE THAT OTHER EPISODE. How goes it?"

Anyway, in general yes but the incest was great! The way he behaves afterward is everything Atia tries and fails to be.

I'm not sure how you want them to mark the passage of time. I mean, it would be nice if the kid looked a few years older, but.

http://store.hbo.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=2079010

If you're American you might be a little surpised about British terrestrial tv stations' attitudes to nudity/violence/swearing etc.; post-watershed (ie after 9pm in the evening) pretty much anything goes. I'm often surprised about how coy mainstream American tv is.

So lots of landing strips in evidence last night.

The accents don't bother me at all - I'm used to 'classical' peeps speaking some form of BBC English. I can't imagine it done any other way.

I'm not shitting you guys.

Why did I dream this and what does it say about me? Ugh.

first episode was okay!

I'm glad Niobe is dead, in a way - the baby plot and the Servilia vs. Julie Cooper plot were, by far, the weakest elements of the series. If you want to portray Roman women, wonderful, but don't stick them with awful, catty side-plots.

Since the Atia/Servilia relationship is treated as the cause of many major events, most notably the murder of Caesar (but it's also why Caesar leaves Rome to chase after Pompey, as I recall), it's hard to consider it a "side-plot". And, although I suppose I don't really want to go down this road, I'm not sure why Servilia's and Atia's sarcastic and subtle grabs for power are considered "catty", but Caesar's, Anthony's, and Cato's aren't -- oh, except for the penis thing.

I think the problem had more to do with Cooper's [is that her name? Atia's] uninspired take on the role, and the ridiculous lesbian bits.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with that ending, and season 2 will be interesting. Octavian (who started out too old and will surely soon be too young) vs. Anthony vs. Brutus should be interesting. Don't know what they'll do with Vorenus or Pullo, though. But Cleopatra should come back, no?

Vorenus and Pullo have allegiances to Marc Anthony and Octavian - so they'll start out fighting alongside them against the conspirators, and then against each other when the two split.

One of the main points of the series was, it seemed, to show how male and female power worked in different ways (in Rome, or at least in their Rome). Servilia ends up being the most powerful person in Rome: She's the only one who gets exactly what she wants (and what she wanted was something audacious and difficult to procure). (I suppose Pullo does too, but he leaves Rome.)

Now, of course, Season 2 is going to have her power come apart, since after all Atia, Octavia, and Augustus do very well for themselves, and Brutus not so much.

The women should have been more than Days of Our Lives cutouts.

Anthony more than any other character came off as an American, and I really didn't like him for it.

Or, to put it another way: The men are ridiculous cutouts as well if they're not just presented as ciphers onto which historical events are mapped (Brutus, Caesar); realistic characters and character motivations are simply not what this show is about.

Caesar is conflicted - we see him from both sides, Machiavellian dictator and hero of the proles.

Pullo and Vorenus are brilliantly written - certainly not 'realistic' but entirely believable and enjoyable.

Anthony is an archetype, the nefarious playboy (but redeemed by his character's loyalty to comrades and the acting), and I don't think you're supposed to like him (he had gladiator whores, and all). He actually struck me as a swash-buckling British aristocrat/bad boy than American.

Even Timon the Jew was well-written and acted.

Brutus was the worst actor and probably had his character undermined by the inanity of Servilia's subplot. I get the concept behind what they did - look at how this traditionally female dramatic plot can tie into this traditionally male dramatic plot, look at how little things can bring down the biggest empires, etc. - that doesn't mean the writers succeeded. All of the male characters (Brutus) aside were well-written, believable, well-acted. Most of the women were (Niobe included - she struck the right note of a commoner entering into society).

Atia and Servilia, on the other hand, were consigned to soap opera conniving. And it was boring, and it was badly done. It was too bad that they occupied such a large (and unnecessary) part of the show. We didn't need Atia's social striving (we got the hint after the first episodes, and her kids were way better), and Servilia's a woman scorned role was insulting.

None of the characters were interesting, however, or well drawn, or anything like that. And that's a good thing! Vorenus's character isn't what's interesting about him, what interesting is what the show's creators got to talk about or show through him. He got to be a mouthpiece for ideas about Roman gods, or Roman duty, of this tradition which is alien to ours (and which might have been alien to actual Rome's, but which, it is being argued by the show, is what was claimed as "what a Roman thinks", or something along those lines).

I get the concept behind what they did - look at how this traditionally female dramatic plot can tie into this traditionally male dramatic plot, look at how little things can bring down the biggest empires, etc. - that doesn't mean the writers succeeded.

But I disagree with this. The entire series is the creators showing you what they're thinking -- there is no other grounds to "succeed" on. If you got the concept, then they succeeded. That is where the entertainment and interest comes from.

If the show had succeeded as, say, blount describes the Sopranos as succeeding, then I wouldn't have been interested, just like I have no interest in the Sopranos.

The entire series is the creators showing you what they're thinking -- there is no other grounds to "succeed" on.
Of course there are. If that's all narrative TV/cinema was, we could get by with one-page summaries and be done. There's drama and there's acting and there's dialogue and everything else.

anyway yeah i love this show, one of the only shows ever that i've "followed" as it was on. but it's carnivale caliber, not soporanos or deadwood or 6 ft under caliber. the bits i've liked are the comments on either earlier caesars (brutus being a feeb, very unshakespearean) or the slightly clumsy riffs on current politix ("i've never actually tortured anyone...we have specialists").

i was daydreaming the other day about an "adventures of posca" spinoff, boo hoo.

British made TV show in not being as good as American made TV show non-shockah!

We may accuse Suetonius of sexism by the light of our times, but underneath the contempt he has for people like Livia, lies perhaps, the reality that intrigue was one of the only avenues of influence open to women in a virile culture like that of the Romans.

I'm not arguing that's the only way a tv show could work; I'm arguing that it's the only thing in Rome that really works, and that everything else only works enough to let the concepts shine, and doesn't work so well that it obscures the shiny concepts.

I never felt Vorenus and Pullo were believable characters having believable conversations, but I did generally feel like they were believable concepts bringing up interesting or fun concepts. The whole "Pullo tells Vorenus about the clitoris" scene comes off as unbelievable -- dude's been in Caesar's army for ten years, which is depicted as being filled with blunt men who talk about sex and the body constantly, surely it would have come up before -- but as far as a conversation between someone "proper" and someone "earthy", in a time before widespread sex ed, it's a pretty clever concept.

...

Roman custom doesn't dictate that Vorenus has to marry Niobe's sister now, does it?

I'm going to miss Indira Varma.

I felt pretty bad when Niobe died, but I think they had to do it. Lucius Vorenus is going to be feeling really guilty in future episodes about his professional screwup in letting Caesar get killed, which would eventually grew tiresome, so they had to mirror that with the more resonant private screwup/loss.

I'm on the side of those who thought the catty intrigue ended up a little on the soap opera side- a few extra arched eyebrows and instead of Ancient Rome, we would have been in Viejo Mexico. Contrast that with Caesar's power plays, which I pretty much bought hook, line and sinker. Usually I have my radar up and think "haha, that actor thinks he can puff up his chest and glint his eye and pontificate and I'm going to believe he is a powerful man. I'm sorry, but life isn't like that, baby" but in this case the writers and especially the actor really pulled it off.

I thought Vorenus/Pullo were great characters, an excellent good cop/bad cop team of one thinking/controlling/repressed guy and one lusty/impulsive/acting out guy. The grumpy straight arrow that is Lucius Vorenus is a type that is near and dear to my heart.

No, that sort of thing I generally find sad and tedious (which means I've found it somewhat difficult to get excited about Rome the actual historical empire, which was after all all about that sort of shenanigans). If it's done in the service of a cleverly turned out plot (P.G. Wodehouse/"Scott Tenerman Must Die" style) then I'll put up with it.

In general hour-long tv shows haven't interested me.

anyway, pretty good, I was hoping ceaser would be around for longer though. bring on cleopatra I say.

Comedy replies are OK as long as I get a serious one too. Thanks in advance.

http://www.hbo.com/rome/episode/season1/episode10.html

this series is really chugging along. i wish it had more seasons to come, as this series really should have ended with Phillipa, and the third would be all about the triumvirate falling apart, ending with the Cleopatra fiasco.

i don't want to see cicero killed.

Phillipi is still two episodes off. Hope next week is more than just build up, though presumably a helluvalot has to happen.

Not so sure about Simon Woods. More Posca and Cicero, please.

Hell yeah more Posca and Cicero!

Looks like Kevin McKidd is going to be in a time-travel cop show!
Looks like this is starting next week.

Watching a few episodes of this every week with s friend in the US and somehow, even though I often think of it as my favourite show ever, I’d forgotten how good it is. Well, at least the first series remains perfect. I spent a lot of time just admiring the attention to detail in costumes and the set (and cursing that the latter burned down), the cast is perfection and it’s just incredibly entertaining at all points.

Lots of people will say that it never really was as good after Caesar was killed off, but I personally love deranged s2 Vorenus and sadistic adult Augustus a lot. My actual series favourite is Mark Antony, not least because James Purefoy plays him with a sort of dissipated vibe and is a massive ride while doing so.

Watching it in 2020, it’s difficult for me not to agree with the cast who thought that GOT got the funding and promo it should have had. Superb and over before its time.

OTM. All time. One of my favorite ever TV series.

Finished rewatching this yesterday, and had completely forgotten the ambiguity over Vorenus’s death. I mean, he survived injury and being pulled in a cart by Pullo for a month only to then die? Don’t buy it, he’s as dead as Caesarion. Unfortunately due to the set burning down we’ll never know. :(

Also, degenerate Mark Antony in eyeliner with the snake tattoo around his nipple is extremely weirdly hot, still.

S2 is a bit lacklustre in comparison to 1 but there’s still so much I loved this time round again. I was interested to read that Antony being considered to have taken up local customs when he was in Egypt was a scandal irl as well.

The eyeliner is not a huge stretch. Both men and women in the Egyptian ruling class wore kohl. Antonius would have seen this as part of his power moves to rule Rome by capturing control of Egypt.

The snake tattoo is just Hollywood razzle-dazzle. Tattoos appear to have arrived in Europe around 1500 CE. If the Romans knew about them at all, it would have been via Scythian slaves and the Roman senatorial class would have shunned them comprehensively as a disfiguring and barbaric blemish, more like a cattle brand than an adornment.

aye the Romans used tattoos to brand prisoners of war and criminals so would have looked down on them, and it was pretty otm of them say I with no tats!

well the Romans of that era I should have posted.

something like nine centuries later the Holy Roman Empire starting using tats on soldiers i think.

Lads I think ye misunderstood my point about Antony’s tattoo.

I was reading a Byzantine history book recently so I'm an egg spurt!

I think ye misunderstood my point about Antony’s tattoo.

oh, I think not. HBO knew what they were aiming for and it wasn't historic accuracy, but something a bit more, um... differently located.

That was my point though?

funny thing is, the eyeliner could have been true to life. at least when he was in Egypt.

actually thinking his snake “tattoo” was maybe?just henna? Which would have made more sense at the time.
https://www.frockflicks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/tumblr_m607rfgUaC1qeun5ho1_500.gif

I've been discovering an obsessive interest in Sumerian culture lately, and kohl (šembi, šimbi, šem-bi-zi-da) goes back 3000 years prior to Antony. Originally charred frankincense, by Antony's time powdered antimony or lead compounds, and neurotoxic. So a little crazy should be expected from those with heavy eyeliner/mascara.

"... Tattoos appear to have arrived in Europe around 1500 CE...."

Didn't Ötzi the Austrian Iceman have some ink on his back?

Yes. He did have some tattoos. The practice of tattooing doesn't seem to have carried forward in any big way into more modern times. When European explorers encountered it in the 1500 CE time period they acted like they'd never seen or heard of such things.

What does that have to do with James Purefoy being hot though?

Quite right, tokyo rosemary. I felt sorry for anyone who couldn’t enjoy Antony’s decline both thematically and visually.

I have the DVDs so I’m going to have to do a rewatch soon.

“Bruno [Heller] once did outline a story that he was going to start the whole series with,” Stevenson said. “An 88-year-old Pullo going down to the riverside by Vorenus’ tomb, or sarcophagus, pouring wine on it, taking a sword out while sitting there on the banks, looking at the glistening river, and committing suicide.

“And as he has his face hit the sand on the banks, a fish jumped out of the water, and the silver light on the fish caught the sword, which brought us right into that first battle with Lucius Vorenus and [Titus Pullo] where he breaks ranks.”

As according to Stevenson, the final scenes of the series would have eventually explained this fate as the relationship between Octavian, who is only a child when Rome starts, and Pullo becomes clear.

Says Stevenson, “The reason was that the only person on the planet who [knows] the Emperor Augustus to be human, who was Octavian, is Pullo. And Pullo’s the only one who has that memory of him or that life. And basically, [Augustus] asks him to. Nobody else could kill him. But at that stage, Octavian is obviously in his paranoid imperial sort of thing, and Pullo is the last tie to that time when he was a boy. It’s genius.”

Finished my third (fourth?) rewatch and it hasn't lost any of its greatness. As for the question about Vorenus' fate: why would Pullo lie to Augustus? Maybe because LV was loyal to Antony and Pullo was just lookin' out for his homie? Hmm.

Would be nice if a surprise "20 Years Later" type film following up on our characters ever gets made. Not holding my breath. But I will make a little offering to Dis and see what happens.

Thanks. Haven’t rewatched since the first time but have certainly thought about it.

I don't think I ever finished this- is there any gay stuff?

ctrl+f gay suggests no :(

THIRTEEN!!!

Ray Stevenson...the one Titus Pullo...Rest In Peace.

Fuck this. Favourite show of all time, adored this guy.

Hadn’t even realized. RIP :(

Been thinking about rewatching recently.

Just was recommending somebody watch that show as an alternative to reading Gibbon.

Finally watched Rome this year, what a treat. Stevenson elevated anything he was in, RIP

One of my favourite non-Thirteen Pullo moments is when Cleopatra is trying to get pregnant and first invites in Vorenus, who refuses. Then Pullo is invited into the tent as second choice, has no problem and they have wild sex with ululating etc. Cut to Vorenus lying outside, fuming, wide awake. Pullo comes out of the tent walking on air, tries to talk to Vorenus, who just shuts him down immediately. It’s an incredible scene with their dynamic and Stevenson’s comic timing is incredible. RIP.

Hahah

IIRC This was the First ever BBC drama (maybe HBO) to be filmed in HD, a good choice looking back on it,

first of the new, rather than last of the old.

R.I.P Ray, you were great in this.

rewatched series one a few years ago, maybe time to go into Season two.

The BluRay has an option which points out all the historical stuff going on in the background, really wish more dramas include that especially all the easter egg filled Marvel/Disney shows.

Forgot about Michael Apted’s involvement.

such a classi, great show. RIP Titus Pullo

The writers hate Cicero so much.

Just saw a trailer with Indira Varma front and center!

She lives round the corner from me and is

…always quite striking even in “just got out of bed to grab coffee” mode

Also a surprisingly awesome audiobook reader for Terry Pratchett’s witches books

Exactly as this thread was revived, I was watching Indira play Lady Macbeth in London's Docklands.

she was great, in case that needed stating....

That’s the trailer I saw!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57_IiR1ynw8