"Rome" series on HBO premieres Aug 28

[Lesa]

Rome, the saga of two ordinary roman soldiers and their families in 51 b.c., premieres this Sunday, August 28, and airs Sundays at 9PM EST on HBO.

The series begins in 51 BC, as Gaius Julius Caesar has completed his masterful conquest of Gaul after eight years of war, and is preparing to return to Rome. He heads home with thousands of battle-hardened men and a populist agenda for radical social change.

Terrified, the aristocracy threatens to prosecute Caesar for war crimes as soon as he sets foot in Rome. Caesar's old friend and mentor, Pompey Magnus, attempts to foment mutiny in order to maintain the balance of power.

Two of Caesar's soldiers, Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, thwart Pompey's plan. Their fates become entwined with those of Caesar, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, and the boy Octavian, a strange and awkward child who, by political guile and bloody force, will become the First Emperor of Rome.

Source: BBC

Cast:

       Lucius Vorenus:  Kevin McKidd
          Titus Pullo:  Ray Stevenson
        Julius Caesar:  Ciaran Hinds
        Pompey Magnus:  Kenneth Cranham
    Atia of the Julii:  Polly Walker
          Mark Antony:  James Purefoy
 Marcus Junius Brutus:  Tobias Menzies
Servilia of the Junii:  Lindsay Duncan
                Niobe:  Indira Varma
       Gaius Octavian:  Max Pirkis
 Octavia of the Julii:  Kerry Condon
       Quintus Pompey:  Rick Warden
         Porcius Cato:  Karl Johnson
Marcus Tullius Cicero:  David Bamber
                Timon:  Lee Boardman

Producers:

Executive Producers:
Bruno Heller
John Milius
William J. Macdonald
Frank Doelger
Anne Thomopoulos

Co-Executive Producers:
Jim Dyer
Eugene Kelly

Historical Consultant
Jonathan Stamp


Directors:

Michael Apted
Allen Coulter
Julian Farino
Jeremy Podeswa
Alan Poul
Mikael Salomon
Steve Shill
Alan Taylor
Timothy Van Patten


Writers:

Bruno Heller
John Milius
William J. Macdonald
David Frankel
Adrian Hodges
Alexandra Cunningham

[Forever Xena]

This sounds like a really good series .

I think I will have to follow this series if I have the possibility too.

[Forever Xena]

It sounds really really good !

More info from USA Today

HBO's 'Rome' burns with realistic depiction of ancient life
By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY
Rome wasn't built in a day — or an episode.

Ray Stevenson (left) and Kevin McKidd play soldiers Pullo and Lucius in Rome, a joint production between HBO and the BBC.
HBO

As extravagant, enticing and chaotic as Rome itself, HBO's latest series boasts all the opulent pleasures that lavish expenditures of time and money can buy. Every detail in its re-creation of ancient Rome may not be correct, but the spirit and the overall picture ring true — and the entertainment value resounds.

Even with those virtues, Rome cannot topple the best of the Roman epics, I, Claudius, which had an all-conquering cast and script. But by moving outside the halls of power and into the city's streets, this series does create a sense of Rome as a living and breathing place — the vibrant, colorful, sensual, crowded center of the ancient world — that has never been matched on TV.

It does not, however, build its empire quickly. Like most HBO shows, which don't face the instant sink-or-swim pressures of broadcast TV, Rome makes little initial effort to draw an audience into its sprawling story. It may take you a few episodes to find your way to Rome. But once there, you may never want to leave.

Written by Bruno Heller (Touching Evil) and directed by Michael Apted, this 12-episode HBO/BBC co-production treads some of the same ground as this summer's Empire on ABC, but in wiser and more convincing fashion.

Rather than opening with the assassination of Julius Caesar (Ciaran Hinds), and losing one of history's most interesting characters, Rome steps back eight years to tell the story of Caesar's battle with Pompey (Kenneth Cranham) for control of the Republic.

About the show

Rome
HBO, Sunday, 9 p.m. ET/PT
* * * 1/2 out of four






Their conflict forces all of Rome to take sides, while firing the ambitions of Caesar's niece Atia (Polly Walker), who combines the political drive of Claudius' Livia with the sex drive of Dynasty's Alexis. She beds Mark Antony (James Purefoy) for fun and profit, but the focus of her attention is her son Octavian (Max Pirkis, one of the show's real finds).

As the Romans did themselves, Rome revels in the sheer, scheming gamesmanship behind this pursuit of power, with Julius the master and Octavian his brightest student. Unlike Claudius, however, Rome is not solely interested in the machinations of the high and mighty. It devotes equal time to the travails of two Roman soldiers: the strict, old-guard centurion Lucius (Kevin McKidd) and his "cheerful brutish" friend Pullo (Ray Stevenson).

McKidd and Stevenson are a wonderful pair, with more than enough chemistry to compensate for the sometimes soapy nature of their plebian story line. The problem is with the aristocrats: Walker is too colorful, and Hinds is not colorful enough. Hinds needs to blossom a bit, and Walker, fun though she can be, really needs to be reeled in.

Though further away in time, there are ways in which these ancient Romans seem closer to us than the settlers in Deadwood. Still, like Deadwood, this is not a series for the squeamish or the prudish. Rome could be a rough and licentious town, and Rome exercises that historical license through throat-slashings, brain-drillings and full-frontal nudity, male and female.

The Romans probably wouldn't have been shocked at all. If you are, well, no one ever said all viewer roads lead to Rome.

[Lesa]

This is one of those times when I wish I had cable.

Has anyone here seen it yet?

[Forever Xena]

Rome will stand for another season
By Colin Mahan | more stories by this author
September 12, 2005 at 05:10:00 PM

HBO orders a second 12-episode season of the mega-budget series about the ancient city.



Rome has more stories to tell. When in Rome, renew it. The city wasn't built in a day, but ratings for the new series were encouraging enough that HBO decided to order a second season. The show has averaged about 3 million viewers a week since its premiere August 28.
The first season of the $100 million series tells the story of the year leading up to Julius Ceasar's assassination, including Ceasar's betrayal at the hands of Pompey Magnus and the Roman Senate. If history holds, subsequent seasons will present the rise of Augustus Caesar and the eventual fall of Rome.
The series utilizes HBO's special ability to portray adult situations to the fullest, with each episode featuring graphic sex scenes, such as a Roman centurion pouring red wine on the back of a prostitute, and brutal violence, such as the same centurion stabbing a man in the neck for his cheating in a game of dice. The series also portrays that most vile of subjects: politics.
Rome is a co-production of the BBC, and stars Cirian Hinds as Ceasar, Kenneth Cranham as Pompey Magnus, and James Purefoy as Marc Anthony. The sprawling, elaborate set of the ancient city was actually built in Rome, Italy, at the famed Cinecitta Studios.
HBO is hoping it can enlist legions more fans loyal to the cause. The network recently suffered a viewer drain for the final season of Six Feet Under, and new shows such as Entourage and The Comeback have failed to find large audiences. The acclaimed western Deadwood shed viewers after the series lost its lead-in of The Sopranos. Both series are scheduled to return in 2006.

[Scrappy Amazon]

Absolutely love this show...though I do think that Ciaran Hinds is way too old to be playing Ceasar during this time period.

[Scrappy Amazon]

So anyone else but me watching this show?

[Forever Xena]

Not yet , it hasnt come to Sweden yet , but sometime in spring we have been promised Rome on Kanal 5