LWhen they finally invent time machines, it’ll be ancient Rome that’s booked up for months. Sure, many of those “saving up for Tokyo” right now will go to feudal Japan and bring back a bunch of hand-made armour, but they’ll be in the minority. Some will simply take the opportunity to go back to London in the 90s and watch an episode of The Big Breakfast being filmed before sleeping with Robbie Williams. I’ll take my girlfriend to Victorian Whitechapel – “No, that’s fine! They’ve got trains and smog! We can wear grey clothes and solve this murder!” – and the trip will be so disappointing that I’ll have to take us on an expensive fortnight in 1960s New York as penance.
But basically, when time travel is invented, your WhatsApp will be abuzz with newly formed groups called “Journey to Ancient Rome”. You’ll have to fork out thousands of pounds for the trip and a few gold coins for accommodation and the kitty for the wine. Every stag do for the rest of time will consist of watching blood sports at the Colosseum, before watching a sculptor create a marble bust of an emperor. You’ll sit next to someone’s nearly silent university friend for a whole long weekend before Christ’s birth, and the only thing they’ll say to you is: “It’s crazy that they have underfloor heating, isn’t it? We don’t even have it in the flat.”
Anyway, here's Those About to Die (July 18, Prime Video), which will have to do until then. It's a big-budget epic, inexplicably starring Anthony Hopkinswho plays an aging emperor Vespasian as he must choose a successor from among his two sons, the warrior Titus Flavanius (Tom Hughes) and the insufferable Domitian (Jojo Macari). There’s a tricky power shift within Rome’s political elite; there’s lots of chariot racing; there are queens who endlessly roam the night in hoods; there are slaves who, through their honor and great strength, will rise to the top; there’s lots of wine poured into great jugs. Blood splatters on the sand. Hopkins walks slowly into a room and delivers a line of dialogue whose words we somehow forget even as it’s actively unfolding. There’s a sweeping CGI shot of the city from above. Roland Emmerich directs it. Saving Private Ryan’s Robert Rodat writes. Iwan Rheon, an evil little boy I always like to see in things, peers through the crack of a door, plotting.
More than anything, Those About to Die represents a tangible shift in the television trends of recent years. It’s easy to watch the opening credits—a map of a city, orchestral music with choral chants, the sound of a sword, blood (or is it wax?) dripping through sculptures—and think, “Ah, right. This is another Game Of Thrones You'll remember when Game of Thrones first came out, there was a massive demand for hour-long TV series set in fantasy or historical lands that didn't really have any life but still lasted a season or two.
The scenes in the pilot were always: a young boy falls into the grey mud of a village while someone shouts “Oi!”; a young golden prince is mean to a servant; his mother, in another room of the castle entirely – played by an actor only eight years his senior – drinks wine and has an affair. Lots of that. That disappeared for a while, thankfully, but there was a menace that, with The Dragon House given its quality, it might tempt production companies to commission the half-ideas they were developing before Daenerys ruined the finale and killed the genre for a while. Those About to Die isn't quite that.
Instead, it looks more like ShÅ gun in that it's a historical drama with enough plot, good acting, blood, guts and gore to make it feel like it has something to offer. I would call this genre “historically accurate.”ish“There are real names and real people, and real buildings that were built and assassinations that were committed, but there are also a lot of side quests and supporting characters that can only exist to keep the wheels of a big-budget TV series turning. And, honestly, that's okay. It's been tough to capture Rome on television—HBO's Rome, obviously—and there have been a few failed attempts recently (I'm looking at you, Domina!).
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Those About to Die may be successful because it doesn't aim for 100% encyclopedic accuracy; it wants you to watch another episode instead of hiding in a Mary Beard book for spoilers. Listen, the bell tolls for another day of racing! While we wait for those time machines to arrive, watching Anthony Hopkins stare off into the distance and say something semi-epic before cutting to CGI may be the best Rome we've got.
