julies

Our excellent and extremely knowlegeable guide (Through Eternity Tours) for the Colosseum and Forum recommended this series to us. She said it was filmed partially on location and was historically accurate. Apparently it was 1st produced by the British and then picked up by HBO. We've just ordered it from Blockbuster--720 minutes for the first year of the series alone. Thought I'd pass this tip on. I'm home and it's now bitter cold where I live, so we'll have lots of long nights to settle down in front of this.

luv2cthings

Just be forewarned, it is far from a G-rated production! Not exactly family fare...

julies

Ooooh! Makes it sound all the more intriguing. Our kids are grown and out of the house so no need for us to worry about that. I am sure others will appreciate your warning though.

Kristina

Love this series and have been watching it faithfully on HBO. I can't wait for it to come back!
My SIL is a classics professor and has used it in her classes, though she says there's been quite a bit of license taken with historical fact. Still, it's very entertaining in a soap-opera type of way. Definitely "R" rated though. ;-)

suec1

I think there were two seasons - it was my impression that was the end of it - I would have liked to have it continue. It does give you a wonderful vizualiztion of everyday life and it helped fix in my head a few of the historical figures. Very watchable "homework" tho a bit trashy! Another good DVD is Rome: Engineering the Empire - excellent info on alot of the stuctures.

chepar

I loved this series. I think the two seasons are it - it's not coming back for another season.

Definitely "R" rated - I lent my dad the first DVD when it came in (Netflix) - I hadn't seen it yet and he was taken aback initially.

opaldog

We just watched Seaon 2. We are headed to Rome in March and I thought I'd like a little flavor of Rome. It is as was already stated, not for family viewing. It is definitely a roman soap opera, but we did enjoy it. There are only 2 seasons.

TexasAggie

I also recall that there were only 2 seasons of Rome. From what I remember reading, production costs were extremely high. As others have said, it certainly isn't G-rated but DH and I really enjoyed it and it really seemed like the producers had gone to great lengths for authenticy. I think you'll enjoy it, julies It isn't too warm here in Denver either so I feel your pain!

Kristina

I'm so bummed. I had no idea it wassn't coming back for another season.

charnees

Well, if you want a little bit more of that you can watch the old PBS series "I, Claudius" which deals with the later dictators -- Tiberius, Nero, etc. They were pretty nasty people, just like the earlier ones. But I, Claudius isn't quite as R rated as Rome was.

By the way, if you look on Wikipedia, there are some notes about some of the historical inaccuracies iin Rome. (Or license, I would call it)

But I too am bummed that they didn't get another season. What I read is that it didn't pick up enough viewers in the first season, and by the time the fans became more numerous it was too late -- it had already been canceled and the set was demolished. I wonder if the more "adult" and violent second season was an attempt to attract more viewers.

nutjobz

I hated the series Rome. It was so typically "historical fiction". Everyone was pretty modern sounding & acting but continually referencing some historical place or person that viewers would have heard of.
How much of our conversation manages to include something a person in 2K years would know about? Or even 20 years.
It all felt so fake, none of the conversation or events had a breath of reality about it.
I tried Rome after I burned through the Sopranos, and sent it back after watching the 1st episode.
Try reading the Aeneid, that will tell you more about Romans.

Vttraveler

I agree with charnees that I Claudius is well worth watching. One of my all time favorite PBS series. Derek Jacobi plays Claudius
My older son and I are great fans of the show and of the Robert Graves novels. My husband has never read them despite my recommendation but his book group's next book is I Claudius

julies

Just thought I'd follow up on this. We've now watched the first 5 or 6 hours of season I. The series is excellent, but make sure your children are safely tucked in their beds for the night because there is a LOT of graphic material.

Thanks to the series, what has been interesting to see after visiting Rome is how the city actually looked at its peak. Now we just see a pile of ruins or brick walls, whereas these were just the internal structural supports, and these were actually lovely buildings that were painted with colorful details. In my mind's eye I can now more clearly visualize what a tryuy great feat the Romans accomplished when they built Rome.

The_Judge

The cheapest price for season one was at Costco/Price Club but for some reason, the 2d season was $25.00 more
The show had great reviews & HBO does not really rely on ratings-the prohibitive cost of the entire production was over $100 million dollars so all we have is two seasons-an excellent article on it was done in the Smithsonian magazine(I'm sorry I do not have the reference for month & year but it can be checked on the website).
IMHO, this series was realistic in the same manner that Hill Street Blues took the typical TV police drama to a new realistic level-it may have historical "inaccuracies" but they are very minor & I think it portrays the "real" Rome-I did view it before my trip but it was much more entertaining than historically instructive.

knickerbocker

For the Canucks on the list, "Rome" is on History Television @ 9pm Mondays (if you missed their wall-to-wall promos since early December . If you did miss it, eps. 2 replays Saturday at 1 and 7 pm.