Graphic Sex? Now I'm really upset I missed it! :whistling: :lmao:

Did anyone watch this and was it any good?

It's repeated on BBC1 sometime at the weekend. Saturday I think :unsure:

It did suffer a bit from first-episoditis but it was certainly watchable.

Oh thanks.....I'll make sure I don't miss it.....

Especially now I know it contains (the bad thing) :naughty:

I don't know why people complain about it so much because it just makes more teenage men etc want to watch the programme. The more complaints the better publicity wise.

It is history and we already know that the Romans were extremely sexually active and extremely violent and its good to see a programme actually taking these into account without worring about the ramifications of showing such a programme.....

Actually it was a bit crap. Really badly acted (check out how stilted Max Perkis is as Polly Walker's son - shockingly bad, considering how good he was in Master and Commander). They seem to be coasting on the fact that it's full of gore and nudity, but then so was "Caligula" and it was godawful.

Could be the curse of the first episode, but I'd be pretty certain that it won't attract 6.6 million for its second episode. Asking around at the office, virtually everyone who was looking forward to watching it, all thought it was pretty terrible.

I thought it was ok, not brilliant <_< I found it very confusing trying to figure out who everyone was :rolleyes: I'll keep watching though as it has a lot of potential :thumbsup:

I watched it.
Over-rated, too much media talk about not a lot of actual content.
Fairly entertaining though.
There were a number of characters to keep track of, but given that it was the first ep they all needed to be introduced.
I would imagine it gets a lot better though.
McKidd and (especially) Stevenson are good as the main soldier characters while Polly Walker as Atia has a lovely set of jubblies.
Heaps of shagging but not enough gore (if you discount Walker having the innards of a cow spilt all over her).
I for one shall keep watching, if only for the boobies.

Good lad, what better reason is there? :shrug: :lmao:

I thought it was pretty good actually, I liked the guy who played Mark-Antony. I'd recommend it.

I do have a vague idea about the history from reading a book about it last year, which may help.

You two should be ashamed of yourselves <_< :snooty:




What time's it on at? :ph43r: :whistling: :innocent:

I was very disappointed that despite all the female nudity the only male full frontal was of a scraggly old man :( Doesn't seem fair somehow :whistling:

My thoughts exactly :lol:

Although just spending most of the hour watching Kevin McKidd wasn't too shabby :shifty: :lol:

There was an interview in the Sunday Times with the producer, who was extremely unhappy with the BBC. Rome is a co-production with HBO and he directed the first 3 episodes, which were shown in their entirety on HBO. But the BBC decided that the UK audience didn't need to see so much of the political parts so edited the first 3 episodes down to 2 episodes, and then sold the show on the basis of it having a lot of sex in. I might try and get hold of the HBO episodes, but there's no way I'm going to watch a dumbed-down BBC version.

Right that's it - I'm getting them on download if the beeb won't show it complete.

Oh. That's bad... I hadn't heard that. The first episode didn't really grab my attention. Sex and gore is one thing, but a bit of intrigue and scheming is something else entirely, and much more interesting from my point of view.

I liked the hints of the conflict between Caesar and Pompey, and I'll be disappointed if not cheated if that side of it has been cut back. And actually quite insulted too, if I'm honest. A big shame... one of the highlights for me was watching Kenneth Cranham's Pompey.

I'll give part 2 a go maybe, and see how things go from there, but, as attractive as Polly Walker's jubblies may be, thats not enough of an incentive for me to watch! (Honest!) :whistling:

Andrew :yahoo:

Just watched the as broadcast by HBO first ep and really can't see why the BBC decided to truncate it. It hangs together better with more explanation as to why they are all doing what they are doing.

The one I watched (D/Led) I presume was the HBO one - what was missing?

The death of Julia was left out or at least only referred to via the letter - and most of the scenes in the Senate plus the odd small character scene here and there.

Overall to cut three eps down to two you must be talking around 40 - 45 minutes of material :unsure:

So that's why the story felt so rushed. I feel quite insulted too, that the BBC should do that.

Heh heh. I saw a winkle.

This is smart. The poor reviews are wrong wrong wrong.

I was most shocked :naughty:

I'm really enjoying this, I know people have complained about it's treatment by BBC but what I don't know can't hurt me ;)

This might be my favourite thing on the TV at the moment. Even with no bare ladies this week.

Octavian- what an evil little shit he is going to be.

Pullo and Lucius are finally making sense within the rest of the programme.

Great curses from Ceasar's mistress- I might try some of those myself.

This makes me want to get a book out so I can find out what is going to happen- I know vaguely from something I read a couple of years back. But wanting to avoid spoilers from something that happened 2000 years ago. But in a way I think I'm in a good position for this programme. I know enough to have a vague idea what is going on- and to know for instance, what a big deal to Romans the Republic was, and what a big threat Ceasar's actions are, how they would be seen, but I don't know so much that I keep going "That's wrong". etc etc

Did anyone see that? :lmao:

Was it an arab strap? I really didn't want to look too closely. Gosh. :blush:

McKidd and Stephenson are superb in the 'lead' roles.
Quite getting into this now.
Some excellent acting.

Yes, there is some proper acting in this. By the by, for some reason, the way Pullo speaks, the way he phrases things, keeps reminding me of Spike.

I'm liking the fact that James Purefoy is getting his kit off a lot :ph43r: :lmao: :thumbsup:

Aside from that, it's really quite good. As said, the acting is terrific with Purefoy and McKidd both turning in excellent performances :thumbsup:

The thing is, in some ways this has so much wrong with it (eg Look- its lesbo sex! and Pullo and Vorenus strain the credibility, no matter how many times Ceasar says they are blessed by Fortune) but it also has so much right (For some reason I loved the exchange before Pompey got stabbed, Mark Antony all the time, the corpse raft (Scientists- does that w**k?)) that it just doesn't matter. Smarto.

I'm loving 'Rome'. It could have been cartoonish, what with all the intrigue, hacking and stabbing and sex, but the acting and direction are subtle, and this makes it a joy to watch, even though I have to fast forward past the violence sometimes.

What a creative use for decomposing bodies! I'm sure as the series progresses, we shall learn more practical uses for corpses. Entertaining and informative, 'Rome' is the BBC at its best.

It's Cleopatra next week :thumbsup:

:lmao: @ the corpse raft. I'm loving Attia (sp?), she's so gloriously self centred :rolleyes: I don't think there's a bad character in the show although some stand out more obviously coughMarkAntonycough :thumbsup:

Yay for Polly Walker getting a Golden Globe nom ! :thumbsup:

Have recently learnt that the BBC versions are edited for language- in the US they get extra swearing. This annoys me.

I've gone off Rome a little, it seems to have lost something over the last couple of eps. Also I don't like how the gloss over battles, decapitations and suchlike.

I continued to enjoy this right to the end- in fact I thought it got better and better. The characters must have meant something to me as I actually let out a "No!" when I realised that Vorenius was going to be told about his wife's adultery.

It got some stinking reviews when it first came out, which probably put some people off it, which is a shame.

Only missed a couple of eps throughout the series (good ones too by all accounts!) but I felt that it was a thoroughly enjoyable series.
Ray Stevenson and Kevin McKidd were excellent and the whole look of the thing was spot on.
If there was a negative point, it would be that some of the characters just aren't focused on enough, leaving you somewhat uninterested when their few scenes come on screen.
The last two eps were thoroughly excellent though, with the Pullo arena fight the zenith of the series.
Caesar was an extremely interesting man though, and I felt he could have been disected more than he was. I also felt he was miscast, that Keiran Hines bloke was pretty pants.

He seemed ok to me as did everyone else.

Enjoyed the double ep. The gladiator bit was a little far fetched but quite a bit of gore and blood so ok. No surprise that Caesar was killed, Niobe killing herself was though. Atia's comeuppence seems to have started, though I kinda expected her to attack Servilia. And surprisingly only Pullo seems to be happy. It'll be interesting to see where they go now, assuming there's going to be another series.

There is going to be another series, but they are not sure about a third because it is expensive.

Presumably the next series will be about the tirumverate (spelling?)- which also suggests that Atia's comeuppence will be shortlived- but I am far from being an expert on this part of history.

the end was quiet good .......... but quiet sad apart for pullo

the gladiator scene and cesar death were done.

I didn't think it was that quiet, I thought it was pretty noisy! ;)

I enjoyed it very much, there were some powerful scenes. I was unsure though whether the edge of a Roman shield could really chop off a person's head, and could Roman swords really slice straight through limbs?

On reflection I feel that the series makers had set themselves a hard task in trying to dramatise the historical events, and at the same time make the story entertaining. I don't feel in the end that they did full justice either to the history or to their fictional characters.