NETFLIX COMMODUS "DOC": ROMAN EMPIRE: REIGN OF BLOOD

So I just finished watching ROMAN EMPIRE: REIGN OF BLOOD, a six-installment series on Netflix. Each installment is probably about an hour or a little less. And yes, it’s as over-the-top as the title implies. It should simply be titled THE RISE AND FALL OF COMMODUS, because that is its subject. I give it 2.5 stars out of 5. Here are four observations on the series.

1. This series is a weird hybrid of styles. Part of it is traditional history documentary, complete with academic talking heads and a narrator. Yet intercut with these documentary gestures are long sequences of live action, complete with some steamy scenes and topless women. The show sort of wants to be a serious documentary, but it also sort of wants to get HBO ROME numbers, and in trying to do both, it doesn’t do a particularly good job of either. Imagine a History Channel documentary with b**bs, and that’s pretty much what you’ve got. Now I’m no prude, and I can appreciate a beautiful woman as much as the next guy, but the partial nudity really felt programmatic and crassly exploitative. Commodus himself generally keeps his clothes on, but he looks like he would be more comfortable on a male swimsuit or fireman’s calendar. Forget the curly-headed and bearded Commodus. This Netflix Commodus is ready for a daytime soap opera. Or the beach.

2. The academic talking heads in these episodes are generally pretty good. Some are highly academically pedigreed, others not so much (and I say this as one whose academic pedigree is not especially eye-popping). But all do a decent job of painting a “life and times” picture of this emperor in an engaging fashion. I do, however, wonder how they feel about contributing their scholarly gravitas to a series that is pretty sensationalistic in so many ways.

3. The production values are pretty good, but not great. There are a few cool shots of a reconstructed Colosseum, with birds flying out from behind it, at a distance. I hope you like that shot, because it gets reused about 15 times during the course of the series, as do 2-3 other transitional shots. A few interiors are reused time and again, also suggesting a limited budget. So visually, the series is just sort of okay by contemporary standards.

4. In my view the series is a bit uneven. Most fascinating, to me, were the middle episodes, as Commodus deals with the Senate (and Cassius Dio), as well as with Commodus’s duplicitous right-hand man Cleander. But the show creators clearly want the highlight to be Commodus’s stint as a gladiator. Indeed, the whole series opens with Commodus entering the arena, and the documentary then flashes back to begin with Commodus being called to the German front by Marcus Aurelius. Commodus’s megalomaniac move to become a gladiator occupies the final two episodes, but it really only needed one. The fifth episode felt so slow to me that I even fell asleep a few times. It seems that the writers were really stretching their material for the last two episodes.

At this point you might ask, “So if you were so underwhelmed, why did you watch the whole series?” Ah, you got me. Clearly there was something in this series that kept me watching. I can’t be like the man in the restaurant joke: “Hey waiter, this food is terrible. And such small portions!” The truth is I was intrigued by some events that I was unaware of, such as the rumors of Marcus Aurelius’s death that prompted Faustina’s treasonous (?) alliance with an Eastern usurper. And I didn’t know anything about Cleander. Indeed, the middle episodes of this series are pretty solid.

So if you are interested in Commodus, or Roman Imperial history in general, you might check it out. Just don’t expect Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, though the series does court those associations. Also know that it might not be a family-friendly show given the violence and nudity. Caveat spectator.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80096545

 

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I don't have much to disagree with regarding your review. I would like to add that historical documentaries I usually have to watch late at night when everyone else is sleeping because the rest of the family gets bored with them. This one was interesting enough to get my wife to pay attention to it and ask me questions! So I think Netflix is just trying to reach a broader audience. I approached it with some popcorn and a mixed drink and enjoyed myself.

 

Thanks for your observations, Gavin and yes Jwt , goes for me too, the family is more into real life emotion tv.

I think this thread need some relevant coins too ?

 

I have to admit I did search for some Commodus with him as the Roman Hercules after watching this series. I will get one someday. Yet another coin on the list…

I do think one of the show's academics briefly discusses the propagandistic power of coinage in the era, though the observations were quite general.

 

Yes coins!

Here's my only Commodus:


Commodus; Philppopolis, Thrace; AD 180-192
AE, 4.07g, 18mm; 6h
Obv.: AY K? M?...-KOMOΔOC; laureate head right
Rev.: [Φ]ΙΛΙΠΠΟ[ΠOΛEITΩN]; bearded serpent with two head fins, coiled
Ref.: Varbanov 994 - Wildwinds offers no description of the legend. Looking at other coins the obverse description may read AY K AI AYP KOMOΔOC. The K on the obv is hard to read and the AI looks a lot like an M. My understanding is Varbanov is not clear on this coin either.

 

Great critique. I know why you watched it all the way through: The Essence of Life...

I did not read anything else!


Oh, yeah, a coin...

The Fireman:

RI Commodus 177-192 CE AR Denarius Apollo Plectrum Lyre

His Wife:

RI Crispina m Commodus 177 CE AR denarius 2.29g Juno stdg RIC-283

 

Gavin => thanks for the review

Commodus, eh? ... ummm, these are my only two examples



Okay fine ... I'm a bit lazier, so this is tonight's down-time activity ...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3183660/videoplayer/vi1553839641?ref_=tt_ov_vi

 

I thought this series was so- so at very best. I'm surprised I hung in there, as long as I did. I thought it rambled on to much. It probably belongs on the History Channel instead of Netflix.

 

Ha ha. I can neither confirm nor deny...

 

The hybrid of styles does sound rather odd, and the sensationalized violence and nudity brings to mind that 1970s movie Caligula, with Peter O'Toole and Helen Mirren. Unfortunately I have no coins to contribute; the down side of being a medeival collector.

 

Oh, I saw Caligula back in my college days. It's no Caligula. But it was a weird hybrid

 

Let's be blunt about the movie Caligula -- it was soft-core porno. But that was the 70s...

 

After Decline and Fall... and Gladiator couldn't someone try a Roman documentary that did not star Commodus? I have always maintained that the best miniseries would be "Maesa". It would start as she narrated the Pertinax and Didius fall and her brother-in-law rise. She would gossip with her sister. She would watch the Geta assassination at the end of one season and the end of Macrinus at the end of the next. The final season would show her changing of grandsons. We could kill Commodus in scene one of the first show just so moviegoers could relate.

 

That would make for some great TV. In terms of Roman history translated to TV/movies, I think nothing beats I, Claudius.

 

Thank you for the thoughtful review. I, too, watched it.

Although I am not a prude, I found the silicone-enhanced ancient Roman lasses a little disturbing.




I do feel, however, that anything that encourages the study of ancient history is a good thing.

 

DeaconRay comment on "Masada" at 3, 2, 1...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081900/

 

I also watched this series on Netflix. Although some liberties were certainly taken with history, I thought it was pretty good. I do not regret watching it.

 

I am interestered for Commodus he was the emperor in the Arena, he was cheating to with the weapons from Galiators

Commmodus hercules sestertius 24.2 g

 

Yes Ro. In fact, the last episode of this series dramatizes this allegation in great detail.