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Basic Facts:

Episodes: 10
Runtime: 60 min.
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Premiered: 2007

Format:

Series

Genres:

Action, Drama, History, War

Created By:

Bruno Heller, John Milius, William J. MacDonald

Actors:

David Bamber, James Purefoy, Kenneth Cranham, Kerry Condon, Kevin McKidd, Lee Boardman, Lindsay Duncan, Lyndsey Marshal, Nicholas Woodeson, Polly Walker, Ray Stevenson, Simon Woods, Tobias Menzies

Made In:

Italy, UK, USA

Premiered at:

HBO

Season one of Rome was on of the most expen­sive and com­pli­cated TV pro­duc­tions ever, but that ulti­mately payed off. Sec­ond sea­son, in terms of pro­duc­tion, was the con­tin­u­a­tion of the first one, with a bit dif­fer­ent for­mat and episode length. They made 10 episodes, each one few min­utes longer than it was in the first sea­son. There were some cast changes due to the time pass­ing and some char­ac­ters grow­ing older, or dead.

Story

Cae­sars death marked the end of first sea­son, with epic scene of blood­shed on the sen­ate floor. The Roman empire was slowly chang­ing, and Mark Antony has emerged from the chaos as a head of the empire. This sea­son cov­ers the rul­ing of the Tri­umvi­rate, rise of Octa­vian and fall of Mark Antony. As for our heroes Vorenus and Pullo, things will be very dif­fer­ent as they lead the Aven­tine Col­legium, gang of thieves, mur­der­ers and smug­glers. I will not go fur­ther into the story, that is once again only par­tially faith­ful to the real his­tor­i­cal events.

As the story goes, this sea­son is as pow­er­ful as the first one, and I really can’t make a clear dis­tinc­tions between the two. I maybe miss some of the char­ac­ters from the first one, but that is not very impor­tant, since there are many more to make up for the loss of some.

Char­ac­ters

It’s a pity that Cae­sar had to die, because Cia­ran Hinds per­for­mance was truly amaz­ing. Same goes for beau­ti­ful Indira Varma, and her char­ac­ter Niobe dying also. But now, James Pure­foy and his role of Mark Anthony are more promi­nent, and a real treat to watch. Young Octa­vian has grown, and now played by Simon Woods who man­aged to show the cold and cal­cu­lated ruler, and yet still trou­bled by the past. Both Kevin McK­idd and Ray Steven­son and still amaz­ing in their roles of Vorenus and Pullo, and are true dri­ving force of the series. We see a range of Vorenus trans­for­ma­tions through­out the sea­son, show­ing through act­ing tal­ent of McK­idd. The only char­ac­ter I didn’t like is the Cleopa­tra. There is some­thing that’s just wrong with that char­ac­ter and even the great per­for­mance of the actress play­ing her, was not enough to change that.

Con­clu­sion

It’s a pity that HBO decided to can­cel the series, but at least they gave it a good, strong end­ing. There is a hope that they will make a movie, but so far noth­ing has been con­firmed. Any­way, this is one show that is really worth own­ing, and watch it over and over again. Truly great TV series.