Talk:Rome (TV series)/Archive 1

message: Who exactly spends their time writing this? Was it some intern down at the HBO offices? Isn't this promotional? --Jonathan
:A lot of the character things were from the HBO website since they were posted before the show aired. Sfufan2005 00:55, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
::It's ridiculous to think HBO would care about the copyright for descriptions on an informational site, but even if they did, it would almost certainly fall under Fair Use.  Lousy copyright police.
Acutally - if you want to know WHO wrote it - check the log. It's not promotional; it is referenced to a whole whack of different sites and references. It is written by people who like the show - who else would put in the time? But, if you feel the coverage is unbalanced, you can always point out where and why. - Vedexent 22:09, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Charcter Descriptions

message: The BBC are showing the series in 11 parts rather than 12. On various forums there seems to be a lot of confusion and no definitive answer as to why, or exactly how. According to some, the BBC decided that the first two episodes has a lot of exposition regarding the Roman empire, that was deemed unnecessary for a British audience, according to others the differences between the running times of PAL and NTSC has allowed scenes to be moved from one episode to another to allow for each episode to fit into a BBC time slot. I guess we won't know for sure until it is broadcast. 19:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears that they consensed the first 1 and a half episodes into the first one. Jooler 22:05, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Belgian national tv (VRT) has started showing the series two days before the BBC, so I watched the first episode there. When I saw the full frontal nudity I wondered if the BBC would show that. In the scene where Octavia undresses before Pompey Magnus, the BBC showed the undressing, but left out the last shot of that scene, where Octavia moves onto the bed on all fours, suggesting that it was comsidered standard for the Romans to have sex doggy style. At first I thought that maybe the BBC objects more to such a suggestion than to nudity. But a bit further on they showed a rather more explicit doggy style sex scene in a brothel. So why did they cut those 3 seconds in the earlier scene? (is it ok for commoners to do this but not for the upper class?) Anyway, of course leaving out such snippets won't account for such a difference in length. On VRT this scene was after 39 minutes. On BBC it was after 30 minutes. Quite a difference. The final scene on the Belgian first episode is that of a burning village. But in the BBC version that seems to be completely missing. Normally I prefer watching BBC because of the lack of subtitles and other intrusive elements in the picture (not to mention that horror called 'commercial break', which VRT, being a national station, luckily doesn't have either). But in this case I'll stick to VRT. DirkvdM 12:44, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

text: There are several scenes completely missing and several more trimmed by a few seconds. Three episodes telescoped into two. But it does not appear to for censorship reasons, but to cram the series into 11 episides. No explanation as to why. Jooler 22:49, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

text: BBC repeated the first episode on Sunday later at night, so I thought that maybe that would be different, but that does not appear to be the case. Alas. DirkvdM 18:39, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Having seen the BBC and HBO versions of the early episodes, I was struck by what was cut out - it wasn't sex or violence, or for that matter historical background that the BBC claims all its viewers know. It was the politics. The most memorable bit that was cut was Octavian's speech when Vorenus and Pullo eat at Atia's, about slaves taking all the work, nobles taking all the land and the Roman people starving in the streets. They also cut most of the build-up to Antony getting assaulted on his way to the Senate. The effect is to remove any indication that the Republic is unstable, and turn it into a simplistic personality clash between Caesar and Pompey. It appears the BBC doesn't believe its audience can handle even that little complexity. I hope when they release the inevitable DVD it'll be the American version, which is excellent. They also ruined the narrative shape of the first three episodes by cutting them into two, and then scheduled David Attenborough's new series on BBC1 at the same time, and unsurprisingly I understand ratings are plummeting. Bizarre decision after bizarre decision - it almost seems like, after spending so much money on Rome, the BBC are deliberately sabotaging it. --Nicknack009 00:57, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: BBC showing 11 parts not 12

message: Shouldn't only the first letter of the title be capitalised, with 'tv' in small print? DirkvdM 06:44, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalisation in title 

message: In talk:Centurion (Roman army) someone asked about the orientation of the helmet crest of a centurion. Near the start of the first episode of this series, what I believe was a centurion had it 'sideways'. Anyone know if this is correct? DirkvdM 06:47, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Centurion helmet crest 

message: The BBC Editing Controversy paragraph now doesn't make any sense. The comparison to Sopranos etc was about the language cuts (which was basically a couple of instances of of the word cunt; a word (unlike fuck) that is still deemed unacceptable for a show starting at 9pm on BBC1/2, probably oaky after midnight). But this bit has been blended in to the stuff about the merging of episodes 1&2&3 into 2, which is a totally separate issue. Bad Edit! Jooler 23:51, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The IMDb claims that HBO episode 3 was actually 15 minutes shorter than the rest of the series, and this was a contibutory factor to the BBC choosing to edit. Can anyone confirm this? If true, it should be mentioned to make clear that only 35-or-so minutes were lost rather than 50. --KJBracey 12:49, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: BBC Editing Controversy

message: I'm just curious if the BBC broadcast date(s) for An Owl in a Thornbush is/are correct. I thought that only How Titus Pullo Brought Down the Republic was "split up" between the 1st and 3rd episodes.
I'm not saying that's wrong - as I don't know - I'm just asking. Did parts of An Owl in a Thornbush get "pushed out" into Stealing from Saturn?
It just looks odd that 'bits' of the three episodes go out on the 2nd, 9th, and 16th - which seems to imply 3 episodes after all.
Beowulf314159 22:02, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The BBC airdates were a mess. I've fixed them. It went out every Wednesday evening, regularly. The first three HBO episodes were edited into two, and the last two went out together as a feature-length episode. --KJBracey 12:12, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  BBC Edits and Dates