Rome

[agricola]

Utterly brilliant; the best thing on the BBC for as long as I can remember.

 

[fizzerbird]

I didn't even know it was on...stumbled across it purely by accident.

Glad I did...same time next week.

Dunno why but I was bemused by the carefully trimmed pubes on the women. For some reason I expected full on unkempt bushiness...not a brazillian.

For those who missed it, it's repeated on Sunday BBC1..erm 11 pm I think.

 

[Sigmund Fraud]

And Pompey was bloody Harvey Moon which was very off-putting.

Why? Kenneth Cranham is a class thesp.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Dunno why but I was bemused by the carefully trimmed pubes on the women. For some reason I expected full on unkempt bushiness...not a brazillian.
.

That's interesting. I'd never formed an opinion on what the tonsorial state of Roman genitalia might have been like, so I wasn't shocked or disappointed to see them clipped in this teleplay.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Now, if they show some naked German tribespeople, and they're carefully clipped, it will start to make me question the verisimilitude of the whole thing.

 

[laptop]

And how exactly does anyone here know about the pubic preferences of the Goths? Or of the Romans for that matter?

 

[Firky]

Utterly brilliant; the best thing on the BBC for as long as I can remember.

shooting hte past is the best thing that has ever been on tv ever, aside from adam curtis' stuff

http://www.methuen.co.uk/shootingthepast.html

A series of three-hour-long linked plays for BBC2 plus two shorter plays

Oswald and Marilyn, played by Timothy Spall and Lindsay Duncan, are the custodians of the collection of 10 million black and white photographs housed in a beautiful period building on the edge of London. Their peaceful old fashioned existence is threatened when some Americans buy the property to turn it into a business school. They have to use their resources and ingenuity to fight the forces of the modern world and as they do so their battle uncovers a mystery from the past, hidden away amongst the photos which has a dramatic effect on the lives of all those involved.

"A meditation on the nature of photographic images, a celebration of old-world English eccentricity at threat in a world of high-technology glossiness, and a reminder that nothing in our heritage is sacred" (Sunday Times)

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

And how exactly does anyone here know about the pubic preferences of the Goths? Or of the Romans for that matter?

It's totally unscientific, but I'm basing my opinion on firsthand experience with modern German females.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

And how exactly does anyone here know about the pubic preferences of the Goths? Or of the Romans for that matter?

It's not in the Amores or something?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

It's not in the Amores or something?

I think it's in Tacitus as well.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/tacitus1.html

 

[laptop]

I think it's in Tacitus as well.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/tacitus1.html

You haven't read that, have you?

(And I'm suspicious both of the text and the translation - seems awfully like Imperialist Victorian Brits writing about hill-people in the subcontinent...)

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

You haven't read that, have you?

(And I'm suspicious both of the text and the translation - seems awfully like Imperialist Victorian Brits writing about hill-people in the subcontinent...)

I suggest that if you say that you have read it, you're fibbing to us.

TBH, I haven't dug into much Tacitus since university.

But hello, laptop?

We're talking about pubic hairstyles here - lighten up.

 

[MightyAphrodite]

Episodes one and two are being cut and spliced into one, as they contain a lot of exposition on Rome (for the benefit of the American viewer ) that the Beeb feel the British public would find patronising. No material is being cut for reasons of sex/violence, etc...

Only the BBC have cut anything afaik.

HBO show's the complete episodes.

You lot should thank HBO for Rome and Six Feet Under and OZ and The Sopranos etc.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Episodes one and two are being cut and spliced into one, as they contain a lot of exposition on Rome (for the benefit of the American viewer ) that the Beeb feel the British public would find patronising.

Oh bull shit.

 

[butchersapron]

Why? Kenneth Cranham is a class thesp.

I know, but i couldn't get Harvey Moon, or the soundtrack to the series out of my head...

 

[redsquirrel]

Bit dissapointed actually. Not as good as HBO's usual stuff, but then it take some time to get going.

 

[sparkling]

Bit dissapointed actually. Not as good as HBO's usual stuff, but then it take some time to get going.

Same here. I got a bit bored to be honest with all the sex and violence it all felt a bit repetitive but I guess they are trying to set the scene really and the ideas of life being cheap etc.

I won't give up on it and hopefully it will calm down a bit, have more storylines and more sympathetic characters...(was there anyone likeable at all?)

 

[stroober]

i liked it, a chib here and a chib there

 

[PacificOcean]

The pacing was terrible, one minute someone would be talking to someone then it would jump to three days later, was this down to BBC 2's editing?

And why the hell spend £10 million to co-finance it only to assume we all have BAs in Roman History and cut anything edumicational out.

 

[Wookey]

It's a quality production, that's for sure. Couldn't help feeling that the Roman powers were portrayed rather kindly. They were thugish killing machines, more like the Sopranos than the stately gents we're seeing...

Pompey ain't as fat as his busts either.

On the whole, very watchable stuff though. I enjoyed the first one.

PS: How come JC has seen the first 8? This is not fair! Has he paid his telly license??

 

[Ms T]

PS: How come JC has seen the first 8? This is not fair! Has he paid his telly license??

Cos he's in Canada.

 

[tim]

bugger it clashed with grand designs and it wasnt even a nice house

And Crimewatch, where they accidentally managed to broadcast one of the confidential untraceable phone calls, no doubt some poor grass is suffering some rather Roman retribution at this very moment.

 

[Crispy]

Didn't see the BBC version the other night (seen it up to episode 8 downloaded form the naughtynet) - but I love it, and it gets better too. Pullo and Verinus will become very a likeable double act and Attia is a scheming bitch of the highest order

There is quite a lot of fast-forward skips, yes, but I never found them jarring. Must be the BBC edit (where did the episode end, btw?) Later episodes should make more sense, even thought the jumps get bigger in places. In episode 8, there's a 'one year later' to fit a pregnancy in

 

[Khardran]

Ditto to what crispy said

It was also quite amusing spotting all the actors who had appeared in episodes of Sharpe

 

[Wookey]

Cos he's in Canada.

This is true - but so do Canada get all our shows before us?

Am confused...

 

[Chz]

Because HBO paid for something like 85% of the show.

 

[LJo]

Thought the editing was terrible, jumped all over the place. Lots of pointless shagging. Too many characters. Will give it a chance but compared to something as tightly plotted and focused as the Sopranos or Deadwood it doesn't really do it for me.

 

[MightyAphrodite]

This is true - but so do Canada get all our shows before us?

Am confused...

huh? who's show? it's HBO's show, and Johnny gets them at the same time people in the US do...thats why he's seen them all i suppose...

 

[butchersapron]

Stricty speaking it's a joint HBO/BBC thing isn't it?

 

[PacificOcean]

Stricty speaking it's a joint HBO/BBC thing isn't it?

We put in £10 million and HBO put in £50 million.

It seems to have paid off. Rome got 6.6 million last night which is huge for BBC2 and over twice that of ITV1 who got 3.5m for Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones at the same time.