After watching part of the third episode of ABC's limited series Empire, I've decided to throw in the towel. This show is hopeless. It is trying to portray the fall of the Roman "Republic" as being the beginning of the Roman "Empire", when anyone with half a brain (and who has read even part of a book on Roman history) knows that Rome's empire can be traced back to more than a century before the Republic collapsed. Roman Republic and Roman Empire are not mutually exclusive.
When I began watching the first episode, I started to keep a list of historical errors, but I gave up after filling a page less than halfway through.
Caesar recruiting a gladiator for a body guard? And the man he recruits is named Tyrant, um, excuse me, Tyrannus? The conspirators try to kill the rest of Caesar's family? (Actually, they made a point of killing only Caesar so they would not appear to be blood-thirsty. Cicero thought them fools for not killing Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) when they had the chance.) And that business with Caesar's will...
It sort of looks to me as if the producers were trying to draw parallels between ancient Rome and the current USA (what a surprise). That's fine; there are many parallels that can be drawn, but try to stick to at least a bare outline of the facts as we know them. If you want to create a whole new story, don't pretend that it's history.
As far as ratings go, it's sort of bittersweet. The ratings have been lackluster, which is only fair given how bad it is. But that also means that it is less likely that another series on Ancient Rome will be commissioned. <sigh>
Here's hoping that HBO's forthcoming Roman series will be better. Actually, I predict that it will be much better, if only because the bar is now so low...
Posted by jt at July 17, 2005 12:34 PM