Shows: Deconstructing Rome
Denise and I have been keeping up with Rome, the original series from HBO. So far, we're less than impressed. Sure, the costumes are nice, and it makes for an amusing tale, but it really just isn't that good.
Ray Stevenson, as Titus Pullo, is by far the most interesting character, though Max Pirkis is making strides in recent weeks as Octavian becomes more than a mere boy.
Still, we're left wanting. All the hoopla, all the great set design, and a really mediocre story. It's just so-so. And unlike Deadwood, it's not because of too much cussing, as there really isn't much. There isn't much violence. While there are some disturbing sexual encounters, there's really not a lot of that either. So you have fantastic costumes, nice sets, no sex, no violence, no cussing and either no story or a really slowly developing one. I feel like we're watching Carnivale all over again.
To make it even worse, we've noticed an increasing amount of digital artifacts in the video of late. Mostly in dark scenes, but those happen frequently enough to make it annoying. All of a sudden you notice this digital blob on the side of someone's head and you end up watching that instead of the show. You'd think they could do a better job than that (of course, this may be the fault of the cable provider as well).
