This season sees rapid shifts in Rome’s ruling authority—"Long live the Republic!" the town crier calls, hedging his bets—and a deepening of the show’s understanding of where power ultimately resides. In the world view of the Republic, curses were the court of last appeal; soon, Rome’s final word will belong to its Emperor. Power is not bestowed by the gods but seized by the ambitious. And it can even be used, we are rather brutally shown, to quell the unrest caused by other ambitious men—that is, for the public good. By challenging the liberal conviction that all power corrupts, the show, despite its flaws, has finally become a drama worthy of HBO’s name.
Actually, though, James Purefoy begs to differ:
When we started doing publicity early on in the last series, we fought billing it as a soap, but actually it is a soap; it's sex in the sandals, it's like Roman Dynasty. Then, once you get your head around that as an actor, you kind of play into it a lot more, you relax into it, it's fine, that's what it is. The Sopranos is a soap, there are good soaps and there are bad soaps, and just because it's a soap, don't be bitchy and snobby about the genre, make the best soap you can. And that's what I think it is, and now everybody realises they are in a Roman soap, it's kind of a lot easier to do - and you're not quite so precious about it.
2 comments:
I tried watching it. It's not as good as a soap. Soaps have pacing, structure and plots. After about three episodes I realised nothing had really happened. A bunch of people you don't really care about not doing very much does not great drama make. Big Brother is better. At least they occasionally give them some tasks to do.
Well, I kinda liked it, although the suspicion that it was part of the reason Deadwood was cancelled does it no favours. It did have a plot but I think they felt that the first few episodes had to set up all sorts of things for the one or two viewers who hadn't seen Gladiator or a production of Julius Caesar.
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