the fall of 'rome'

or, the triumph of mechagodzilla.

as some of you may know, HBO has finished its run of 'the sopranos' and 'six feet under'. with 'sex and the city' a distant memory and its drama and violence factors sharply reduced, the highly successful cable network sought far and wide for a new show to fill the lacuna in its programming schedule. unfortunately, it felt that republican drama would be an ample source of ratings.

i'm not even going to go into the historical inaccuracies - the average viewer will neither know nor care. i'm a classicist, a romanist to boot, and i don't really care. what do concern me, however, are production values and entertainment content. 'rome' is deficient in both.

so, i missed the first episode. after having seen the second episode, i'm not crying myself to sleep over the fact. let's face it - i have a degree in this, i can fill in the gaps. but, that brings me to my first complaint: 'rome' suffers from the same problem 'troy' and 'alexander' faced - not particularly accurate from the historical perspective, but sufficiently complex to confuse the classical neophyte. a bevy of bland, togo-clad dudes arguing with a plethora of equally generic-looking, skirt-wearing soldiers - you're not really sure why they're all upset, but there's plenty of geriatric, dyspeptic hand-wringing to denote emotional turbulence. last night's highlight was, hands down, the brawl in the senate-house. canes and walkers were flying as pasty-faced british men squared off in their bedsheets. riveting!

what the viewer will have probably deduced by the end of the episode is that caesar has been naughty, and the politicians are angry. but, they'll probably side with caesar, since he has a horse, and all the senators have is emperor palpatine (creepy, seriously). cato's outfit was enough to send me over to caesar's camp - i saw old man nipple, and i was disturbed. for god's sake, we know you're trying to keep it real, man, but put on a burlap tunic or something. no one wants to see saggy, wrinkley, pasty old man boob. *shudder* but while we're on the topic of the politicians - it's nice to know that republicans were just as ultra-conservative, belligerant and stuffy 2000 years ago as they are today. you really feel the symphathy for their plight...whatever it is.

as for casting, the director sat down with a few jane austen movies and made some notes - 'emma', 'persuasion' and 'pride and prejudice' are all represented copiously. don't get me wrong, cicero was a pompous ass, but when i think sanctimonious, obnoxious republican, i don't think of the ridiculous mr. collins. well, maybe his comb-over. and let's not forget octavian: he looks like doogie howser, without the credibility. and he spouts some absolutely dreadful anachronistic idealisms about the evils of an economy based on slavery, the oligarchy of the nobility, the oppression of women etc. but don't worry folks, when caesar bites it, he'll adopt the patriarchal, power-hungry mantel of his forebearers, enslaving cities and crucifying thousands along the way. a true roman hero!

and finally, since this is HBO after all, full-frontal nudity and gratuitous sex abound. all that killing and speechifying really works up the urge to DO IT. often. sometimes during the killing and speechifying.

perhaps you're wondering about the rubric at the head of the blog. after the painful visit in 'rome', we flipped over to cbc and caught the latter half of a bad japanese flick. mechagodzilla and titanosaurus teamed up with asian aliens to face off against asian elvis impersonators sporting bad british accents. oh yeah, and there were some cyborgs too. tokyo seemed all but lost, until it was saved by the fortuitious entrance of godzilla. because, as steve so aptly put it, godzilla is like a jealous ex-boyfriend: if he can't destroy tokyo, no one can.

the verdict: mechagodzilla - 1, rome - 0.