jducoeur

We finally got around to watching the end of Rome last night, so time for a few thoughts on the series. No real spoilers here, although I'll talk a little about the sweep of the story.

In general, I'm quite impressed. The story does take some liberties with history, especially in the way it weaves our fictional protagonists Pullo and Varenus into the high-level political struggles of the day. On the other hand, it doesn't appear to violate the historical accounts too much: it just embroiders them with the myth of these two hidden but important figures, while tacitly treating some details of the usual accounts as later additions. The result is largely plausible, if sometimes ill-documented. It manages to make the political class of Rome look pretty sordid -- but then, so does Suetonius. Most of the characters are richly drawn, and most of them are allowed some real arc -- albeit necessarily a somewhat sketchy arc, since there are so many characters in this sprawling tale.

The cost of the production is reportedly what killed the show, and that shows up on the screen: it's lavishly done, and feels quite real to my admittedly layman's eye. The acting and direction are both delightful, if sometimes a bit scenery-chewing. The historical research seems good, with lots of fascinating odd details that have spawned a mini-industry of people trying to figure out what the *heck* is going on in the background. (Even the business of breast-feeding Caesar's corpse, which occasioned much head-scratching, seems to be at least somewhat justified by some academic examinations.)

I'm disappointed that it ended, but they chose a good place to stop -- the story comes up to the ascension of Augustus Caesar as the clear winner, which is when the actual history gets a lot quieter for a fair while, without the big famous battles that the first two seasons swirl around. It would have been fun to see what comes next (the series is mostly about everyone's personal lives, so I'm sure it would have made much of the court intrigues), but it would have been different. And the series ends well: while they left plenty of loose threads that could have been picked up if it had been renewed, the second season doesn't end with the sort of cliffhanger that the first does.

And I must say, it's fascinating to see Brutus get treated as practically the hero of the tale. In the entire series, I think he's the only person who comes across as consistently good, noble and well-meaning. (If a tad weak.) Sadly, he's on the wrong side of history, but they clearly made the conscious decision to mess with peoples' expectations by having him as simply an unfortunate man, trying to do the right thing but a little too easily manipulated by the stronger personalities around him.

Overall, great stuff -- I recommend seeing it if you have a chance. Note that you do want to get both seasons, though: they really form a single pretty coherent story, albeit one that sprawls across decades. (Be prepared for occasional jumps of several years between episodes...)

So I flipped on the TV for a bit while grabbing a bite of dinner, and here's a special: "Sarah Silverman/Jesus Is Magic". And my reaction is absolutely clear: George Carlin has been reincarnated as a pretty brunette. It's a *very* odd juxtaposition...

A couple of times in recent weeks, I've gotten into discussions about Battlestar Galactica, and specifically whether the show had particularly good or bad characterization. This makes me curious about what people think on the subject, so I shall assuage my curiosity in the tried and true LJ fashion: let's have a poll!

This poll is intended for people who have watched a fair amount of BSG. If you haven't watched at least half a season worth, just skip right over it. Note that there are two distinct questions here; they're related, but please think about them separately. This is strictly focused on the characters -- for purposes of this poll, disregard questions of plot, plausibility of the scenario, and so on. Feel free to add further opinions in comments.

[Poll #892555]

It's an interesting time to be a connoisseur of both pop culture and politics. You can get a sense of where things are going by looking at the stories people tell -- and those stories have been changing significantly of late.

It's particularly apparent in 24, always a fine barometer of attitudes towards "muscular America". Last year was a neocon's wet dream -- the bad guys were an Arabic family living in America who turned out to secretly be terrorists out to destroy the country with nukes, and the hyper-liberal character was the unwitting patsy of the villains. This year, by contrast, the crisis was precipitated by extreme neoconservatives overreaching themselves in their anti-terrorist moves, featuring a president who is both foolish and weak and a vice president who is manipulative, Machiavellian and possibly (we're about 2/3 of the way through the season at this point) Just Plain Evil.

The same trends are showing in comics as well, even in the straightforward superhero stuff. On the DC side, they've been setting up a new series pitting the *blatantly* nasty government superhero team ("SHADE"), vs. the new incarnation of The Freedom Fighters, led by Uncle Sam. (One of the most deliberately iconic characters in the DC mythos.) At the same time, Marvel is running their Civil War storyline, which is a bit subtler and more nuanced, but still pulling in many of the same themes -- the superhero community is split by a new law requiring registration of all superheros. It's conspicuous that Captain America comes down as the leader of the anti-authoritarian crowd. The comic book industry has long had an implicit distrust of authority, but it's getting both more obvious and more confident lately.

For several years it's been a truism among both the left and the libertarians that creeping authoritarianism was one of the greatest dangers facing the country. It's fascinating (not to mention encouraging) watching that finally beginning to really permeate into pop culture. The meme of "we need to be tough if we're going to be safe" is gradually losing ground to "authoritarianism is *wrong*". That's not the whole game by any means, but it's damned good to see.

(Now there's a service that would be fascinating to have: a memetic weather map. Some sort of public site that lets people track major memes, and contribute opinions about where cultural works are pointing. Deliciously meta...)