Rome: The Complete Series
It cost more than $100 million and lasted only two seasons on HBO despite the acclaim of its audience and of critics--and seven Emmy wins. But Rome: The Complete Series is all the more potent for its limited number of only 22 episodes; characters rise and fall with the inexorable pull of history, battles are joined and won, and the complex web of schemes and conspiracies that attended Rome’s final years as a Republic--then saw it slide into Empire--stretches wide, but stays taut.
In terms of scripting, acting, and production, there’s little that can compare with the show’s ripped-from-the-parchment storylines. Even now, several years later, the show holds up to repeated viewing; the DVD set’s "All Roads Lead to Rome" text commentary provides additional in-depth insight and explanation into Roman history and culture, as do interviews with historical consultant Jonathan Stamp.
The transfers are done in anamorphic wide screen; the Blu-Ray version goes a step further, presenting the series in 1080-pixel quality (sharper than a centurion’s sword), with the sound presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. If you have a Blu-Ray player, this set is a must. If you have a standard DVD player, this set is still a must. If you already own the series on DVD, this might be a reason to upgrade to Blu-Ray--or the perfect gift for a friend with good taste in TV and movies. To put it plainly, this release is probably the most exciting of the season.
The set is designed and accordingly, with 11 discs tucked into the thick cardboard sleeve "pages" of a book-format package. (There’s even a built-in ribbon to use as a "bookmark" so you never forget where you left off.) The "book" slides neatly into a slipcase, along with a character map: essential, given the series’ broad array of characters, from plebe soldiers Voranus (Kevin McKidd) and Pullo (Ray Stevenson) to the heads of the Empire’s most illustrious, and ruthless, families (Polly Walker as Atia, a relative of Julius Caesar and the mother of Emperor Caesar Octavian, is a series standout, as are James Purefoy as Mark Antony and David Bamber as Cicero).
The multitude of special features are engaging and informative: the audio commentaries are erudite but entertaining, the featurettes reveal the production’s vast scale, and interviews with cast, crew, and creators seldom carry the sense of vacancy that plagues so many other similar special features elsewhere.
Most crucially, the episodes present a foreign world full of strange customs--and yet the political climate, and even the rhetoric, of ancient Rome are all too similar to today’s. As in a bright bronze mirror, a long deep look into Rome feels like an examination of ourselves, here and now.
Special Features include:
- Audio commentaries
- "All Roads Lead to Rome" text commentary
- Character map
- "Friends, Romans, Countrymen: Introduction to the Characters of Rome"
- "Shot X Shot" featurettes: "Caesar’s Triumph" looks at the lavish victory parade from Season 1’s tenth episode, "Triumph," and "Gladiator" examines the intense combat action of episode 11, "The Spoils."
- "The Rise of Rome"
- "When in Rome"
- "A Tale of Two Romes"
- "The Making of Rome, Season 2"
- "The Rise of Octavian: Rome’s First Emperor"
- "Antony & Cleopatra"
- Photo Gallery
