Tag Archives: HBO

Mar 18 2021
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Art, Television, TV, TV series, Uncategorized

Rome (2005-2007) really should have been given another season.

It’s your classic HBO series that deals with the upper echelons and the gutter, the senate and the Aventine, Caesar, Pompey, Mark Anthony, Octavian – Roman Republic to Empire and buttressed perfectly by the characters Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, these based on two centurions mentioned in Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War. James Purefoy especially excels here as the dashing and charismatic Anthony. He’s Bond material (he did actually audition twice for the role and almost got it).

Rome doesn’t skirt from the depravity, the rituals and religious sacrifices of the era, and the creative use of naughty language is funny as hell. It succeeds so well at building a world and bringing that period to life, but these people also talk like we do; there’s none of this long-winded theatricality to the wordplay. The spectacle and ambition of the show is unrivalled for its time. The first season is nigh on perfection yet the second so very rushed; they were clearly tying everything together and trying to end the story in a satisfying way.

Apparently they just didn’t have the money to make any more of them which is a shame because it’s rather great.

And what an opening title sequence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msHHv8PSBOk

Further reading/viewing:

Rome: The Long Road of the Original HBO Epic

https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/rome-season-1-review/

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May 20 2019
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Fantasy, Game of Thrones, Television, TV, Uncategorized

Game of Thrones. Goodbye, my love.

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Eight years of Westeros drama, 2011-2019, with a godawful two-year hiatus between the 7th and final season. To accidentally appropriate a catchy verse in a recent Justin Bieber song, it’s been a hell of a ride (driving the edge of a knife).

Thrones was two-in-one TV, shades of history with splatters of fantasy, brutal realism and realpolitik – one got the sense of the intrigue at the court of Klemens von Metternich or Bismarck editing telegrams – with magic and dragons. And all if this topped off with booze, tits, and your occasional rape. Peak Thrones has to be season 4, for the superlative writing, the intricate balancing act between the intimate and the epic, Tyrion’s ‘fuck you all’ trial, and the sheer number of what-the-fuck-just-happened moments. It was literally astonishing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Malp9EZubU

Things went a bit downhill from season 6 on. It was evident the writers, having gone beyond the Martin books, had run out of ideas and sadly resigned the show to that of ‘experience’ – spectacle, hordes of extras, battle after battle. Which is fine, but the verbal sparring and power plays such as those between Varys and Littlefinger were sorely missed, so too was any sense of remaining mystery about the familiar ensemble – all their cards were on the table. It frankly became a bit silly. Not to bother, it’s partly because the bar was set so high for so long that the later episodes in the saga felt lazy despite being the most watchable bits of drama on TV.

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Summary thoughts:

  • What the hell was Petyr Baelish’s accent all about? It fluctuated from one region of the British Isles to the next depending on how devious he was feeling.

 

  • Tyrion got boring by the end. He forgot he had witty things to say, and it didn’t help that it was no longer a case of dwarf vs. everyone.

 

  • Ramsay Bolton was Joffrey on steroids.

 

  • Stannis Baratheon reminded me of almost every supervisor/manager I’ve had, displaying a facade of nobility, but will without compunction burn their own kin for a pay rise.

And every time I eat chicken I think of The Hound and Arya tearing around the countryside, psychos in arms. Those two were meant to be.

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