Rome - Season 1-2 - Complete [DVD] - £23.97 & Delivered Free

I watched Rome when it first aired on the BBC in 2005 and thought it was amazing. It's been 5 years, now, and I saw it was fairly cheap on Amazon so got it for Christmas. It's only 3 days later and I've already seen most of the first series!

The thing that stands out this time around is just how good Rome was. The fall of the Roman Republic is quite possibly the most tumultuous period in Political history so the writers were always onto a winner when writing a big-budget drama. Watching the drama and violence may seem over-the-top, but practically all the major events and murders depicted here happened. In fact, if anything, despite this being one of the most violent and perverse mainstream dramas broadcast, the writers have shied away from the darker and more indulgent aspects of ancient Rome -- Mark Anthony, for instance, had several gay (as well as countless heterosexual) affairs and used to attend wild parties dressed as a god, in a chariot pulled by lions! (Anthony here, played superbly by James Purefoy, is still outrageous by modern standards, but surely the reality would have been too much to stomach for the BBC).

Where the writers succeed, though, is meshing this story onto strong, utterly-compelling character-driven plotting set within a landscape so fantastically realised that practically every shot takes your breath away. The day-to-day dirty, violent, horny reality of life in ancient cities has surely never been more accurately and beautifully portrayed. The streets of Rome are alive before your eyes, and the characters whose lives you follow through them are equally captivating (the hilarious and brutal story of unlikely friends, Centurion Lucius Vorenus and legionarie Titus Pullo; the family drama of high-society Atia and her children Ovtavia and Octavian (the future emperor Augustus); the political and military careers, the lives and loves of Anthony and Caesar; and supporting plots concerning the plotting against Caesar, the working conditions of Rome, the pagan religions and sacrifices, not to mention the careers and demises of Cato, Cicero and Brutus). As I say, the writers already had writing gold before they even put fingers to keyboard, but the effort they have put in to covering so many of Rome's facets, to also create memorising and loveable characters, has to be lauded as one of the best written dramas of our age.

Rome does have its faults (some historical inaccuracies and -- largely due to the events covered in series one being so powerful -- the second season isn't quite as strong), but there is nothing else like it (if you have been put off watching this from seeing the Tudors, give it a go, I think you will be surprised by the difference). I think I enjoyed Rome more second time around. I guess because it has been and gone and nothing has come close to matching it for sheer extravagance, debauchery and spectacle. I can't wait to watch it on Blue-Ray )