Having watched the first part last night I can safely say that the title does not mislead you. Never before have I seen so much gratuitous blood in a TV series. In fact towards the end it was getting quite boring watching blood spray across the screen in slow motion (and I find it disturbing that you can become immune to that so quickly).This is not a Kirk Douglas tribute.
Instead it is much more "300" meets "Rome" with "Troy" whilst managing to be not quite as good as any of them. And that's a shame because some of the characters and the subplots established in this first episode have a lot of potential which I hope will be explored in subsequent programmes.
The fight scenes were well choreographed and well presented. I particularly liked the gladiatorial scene at the end of the episode - very Brad Pitt. The style and presentation of the show I liked with the way it panned in and out of the maps to live action. The acting in the main was good - British actors of course for the main so not quite what that tells you about the acting styles on the two sides of the pond.
So I'm hoping that the opener was designed to be sensational and cause a lot of interest for being so explicit whilst following programmes tone it down and concentrate on the stories to be told.
5 comments:
Isn't it annoying yet again, though, given we know how gladiators were dressed, to have some costume designer "interpreting" the look rather than trying to be accurate.
The first episode is by far the weakest, by an order of magnitude. I'm so glad my wife convinced me to keep watching. Don't give up hope -- it gets much, much better.
Per Ambassador's comment, the first episode was good - but by far the weakest in the show's run. It gets better and better right through the end, which left me breathless and waiting for season 2. Fantastic show!
i agree, having seen every episode keep watching, the story gets better every week and the blood is not as bad in later episodes
So I've just watched the first episode, having never heard of this before I read your post and I have to laugh at what must be the most blatent rip off I've yet seen of '300'. I'll with hold judgement until I've seen the first season in its entirety, but so far the best part has been all the writhing women!
Also, its curious but in recent years, Romans seem to have become much coarser than they used to be, though I guess bad language doesn't really signify when considering a people who watched murder as entertainment.
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