The first episode of Empire, ABC’s new miniseries about Rome during the time of Augustus, was silly, lurid, and chock-full of ridiculous inaccuracies.
I think the series is off to a damn fine start.
It’s a gorgeous spectacle, and the actors are immensely pleasurable to watch, especially the (OK, admittedly on-target) depictions of Brutus (spineless), Cassius (slimy), and Antony (brutal). They’ve definitely got me hooked for the rest of the series.
If you’re following it, the middle hundred pages or so of H. H. Scullard’s From the Gracchi to Nero are an accessible — and absolutely peerless — crib sheet for the times.
But I’m a Vestal!
Hmm, I may have to turn over to the network to catch that.
Check it out, by all means. The first episode’s political machinations were great fun, but there was also enough wickedness and swordplay and TV-safe sexual intrigue to keep it from bogging down, and the camerawork and scenery were unbelievably lush for a network series. I do wish, though, that they hadn’t gone and turned Cicero into a Roman equivalent of the Alec Guinness Ben Kenobi.
Dang, I missed it! Are they going to rerun the first episode?