WWTBAM Bored

We don't get cable-but we started rentin various HBO series from Netflix-

We did Big Love season 1

Deadwood-we have one disc left from Season 2.

Obviously we will do the remaining seasons from those shows-
We have thought about the Sopranos for after.

Rome popped up yesterday-on my radar screen

Anybody have any thoughts on Rome? or any other seriesss.

I recently rented the whole Rome series through Netflix, and I absolutely LOVED it. Highly entertaining and informative (though they do take some historical liberties). I strongly recommend watching ALL of the extras, including the audio commentaries and a special feature called "All Roads Lead to Rome," which displays notes about ancient history and culture throughout each episode. This will take a fair amount of time (I wound up watching all episodes with the historical notes turned on from the beginning to save time and aid understanding), but IMHO it's worth it. This is compelling and even addictive stuff, and you might even get some trivia knowledge out of it.

Oh, and one last thing: like many of HBO's other series, Rome is not for children or for the faint of heart. Be prepared for lots of explicit sex and graphic violence.

Spock wrote:We don't get cable-but we started rentin various HBO series from Netflix-

We did Big Love season 1

Deadwood-we have one disc left from Season 2.

Obviously we will do the remaining seasons from those shows-
We have thought about the Sopranos for after.

Rome popped up yesterday-on my radar screen

Anybody have any thoughts on Rome? or any other seriesss.

Again, I loved the Sopranos, and I will start watching Deadwood soon. But, really, you need to run to the video store right now and get the first season of The Wire. Order, say the 3rd or 4th disc from Neflix if you do that, but waiting for the mail to come for the first couple discs will take you too long, you are too deprived. It may be the best show in the history of television.

Rome is great, I have both seasons on DVD (birthday presents from the Young Ones). It was extremely well done in fine style (to the extent that, apparently, the reason that there will not be a third season is that it costs too much). It is very historically accurate in the way it presents the time period involved, the military actions are accurate (and very graphic), the attitudes of people are pretty accurate (that is, the people act and 'think' like people living in the time period, rather than acting and thinking like 21st Century people wearing costumes of another era), they even presented Caesar's triumph accurately.

They took a lot of liberties with the people-- Octavian/Augustus' mom appears at his triumph, where she 'has words' with that strumpet, Livia, although in fact she died over a dozen years earlier; they present Livia as Augustus' first wife (she was actually his third), and don't notice that she was pregnant with her second son when they met (they actually married a bout three days after she gave birth to Drusus); Octavian/Augustus' mom is presented as quite the slut, but in real life she was famous for her virtue; etc.-- but other than that sort of thing, it was a great series.

It's pretty graphic in places, blood flows freely, and a lot of the characters have a really good time with each other (in a society that apparently had no missionaries, if you catch my drift). If it had been released theatrically it would-- at least-- have garnered an 'R' rating, possibly the next one. But the graphic stuff really is part of the story, not particularly gratuitous (i.e., none of the 'gee, no one's gotten naked for 20 minutes, time for a sex scene' kind of thing).

I really liked it.

I'm also a fan of Rome. It's hard adding anything to the conversation after wintergreen's endorsement, but if you've ever seen the I, Claudius series, this one is similar with one nice extra. Through the characters of Virinus and Pullo, we get to experience Rome through the eyes of one of the middle class and a lower class soldier, and not just through the eyes of the imperial family.

We don't subscribe to cable, so I see all these programs through Netflix as well.

I absolutely loved "The Comeback" which was only on for one season (thirteen 30-minute episodes). Lisa Kudrow is absolutely brilliant in this. The entire series is on two disks.

MarleysGh0st wrote:I'm also a fan of Rome. It's hard adding anything to the conversation after wintergreen's endorsement, but if you've ever seen the I, Claudius series, this one is similar with one nice extra. Through the characters of Virinus and Pullo, we get to experience Rome through the eyes of one of the middle class and a lower class soldier, and not just through the eyes of the imperial family.

Thanks for saying that, Marley. I have not seen Rome, and all the people I know who have raved about it have been guys, so I was beginning to think that it was whatever we'd call the opposite of a chick flick -- war, blood, sex, etc. I loved I, Claudius, however, so now you've made me want to see this series, and I will make an effort to do so.

I've not gotten into any of the HBO series, but I did just add Season 1 of "Jeeves & Wooster" to my BlockBuster queue.

silvercamaro wrote:

MarleysGh0st wrote:I'm also a fan of Rome. It's hard adding anything to the conversation after wintergreen's endorsement, but if you've ever seen the I, Claudius series, this one is similar with one nice extra. Through the characters of Virinus and Pullo, we get to experience Rome through the eyes of one of the middle class and a lower class soldier, and not just through the eyes of the imperial family.

Thanks for saying that, Marley. I have not seen Rome, and all the people I know who have raved about it have been guys, so I was beginning to think that it was whatever we'd call the opposite of a chick flick -- war, blood, sex, etc. I loved I, Claudius, however, so now you've made me want to see this series, and I will make an effort to do so.

I liked Rome, but mainly for the war, blood and sex. Ha! Plus, Polly Walker's pretty hot.

Whenever I hear of I, Claudius I think of Cheers and it makes me laugh. I'm paraphrasing (it's been years),

Frasier: "I've got all the episodes of I, Claudius on tape!"

Sam: "I love gladiator flicks!"

I'm watching Big Love - great show. Watched the Sopranos off and on but my all-time best EVER TV show is Six Feet Under. Just got the 4th season for Christmas and must get all the others sometime. It was the reason I signed up for the extra cable channels - just to get SFU.

It also had one of the best finales of a series.

Don't forget SHOWTIME and DEXTER. That's the best show I've seen in forever -- taut, thrilling, brilliantly acted, gruesome, controversial.

If anyone needs any of these shows, just let me know. I have an extensive collection, thus making me Most Popular Aunt among the young-uns ...

--dimmzy, who's now enjoying the many marathons on TV today AND the OUTDOOR Buffalo Sabres/Penguins game