RIP Ray Stevenson

News has sadly broken that actor Ray Stevenson has passed away, at the far too-young age of 58.

Stevenson was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland in 1964. He moved to Newcastle with his family at the age of eight, and developed an interest in acting after attending the theatre as a youngster. He studied at the Old Vic and made his screen debut in the film The Theory of Flight (1998).

He got his big break in 2005 when he appeared as Legionary Titus Pullo in HBO's Rome. One of the two series leads, he played alongside Kevin McKidd as Lucius Vorenus, Pullo's superior officer who initially despises Pullo for his uncouth ways. However, Vorenus eventually comes to appreciate Pullo's bravery, his indomitability in combat and his past-the-point-of-lunacy sense of friendship and loyalty, in short supply during the waning days of the Roman Republic. The double-act of McKidd and Stevenson helped make Rome a key (if often underappreciated) part of the HBO Golden Era.

Stevenson secured his reputation for playing honourable, warrior types by playing Dagonest, a Knight of the Round Table, in the film King Arthur (2004). His first lead role was in the Scottish horror movie Outpost (2008), followed up quickly by playing the role of Frank Castle aka The Punisher in Punisher: War Zone (2008). Stevenson sent up his tough guy persona in the comedy The Other Guys (2010).

In 2011 he debuted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Volstagg, one of the Warriors Three, in Thor. He reprised the role in Thor: The Dark World (2013) and Thor: Ragnarok (2017). He followed that up with roles in The Three Musketeers (2011) and G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013), and all three films of the Divergent Trilogy (2014-16).

His other television credits include Isaak Sirko in nine episodes of Dexter (2012) and the major role of Edward Teach/Blackbeard in Starz's Black Sails, appearing in the last two seasons (2016-17). He voiced Gar Saxon in two episodes of Star Wars: Rebels in 2016 and 2017 (returning to the role in two episodes of The Clone Wars in 2020), and played Ferdinand I of Naples in two episodes of Medici (2019), as well as James IV of Scotland in The Spanish Princess (2020). He played Ohthere in the sixth season of Vikings in 2020 and Commander Jack Swinburne in the new version of Das Boot (2022).

Stevenson played the antagonist of the massive Indian smash hit movie RRR (2022). At the time of his passing he had completed shooting the film 1242: Gateway to the West and his role as Baylan Skol, a villain in Star Wars: Ahsoka, due to air in August this year.

The cause of Stevenson's passing has not been disclosed, only that he had been hospitalised whilst shooting the movie Cassino in Ischia. Stevenson played the lead in the film, starring as a disgraced action star looking to get his career back on track.

Stevenson was an accomplished actor, combining his impressive physicality with an everyman approachability and emotional vulnerability in his performances. His breakthrough in Rome may have led to slight typecasting as badass warriors and soldiers, but he always brought humanity and depth to his performances, no matter how slight (such as when being massively underused in the Marvel movies).

A charismatic performer, he will most certainly be missed.

The Power and the Glory: A Rome Retrospective

Julius Caesar (Ciaran Hinds) returning victorious after the Battle of Pharsalus.

HBO’s Rome is quite possibly the most underrated show in that broadcaster’s canon of very, very fine TV programmes. Airing for just two seasons and 22 episodes in 2005 and 2007, Rome arrived in a blaze of publicity, hyped as the most expensive ongoing TV show ever made, a cross-ocean co-production between HBO and the BBC. Critical indifference and declining viewing figures saw the BBC pull out of funding the series after its second year and HBO, uncharacteristically panicking, chose to cancel the show. A later critical reappraisal and very healthy DVD and Blu-Ray box set sales made HBO realise they’d made a terrible mistake, but it was far too late to remount the project. The actors had scattered to numerous other projects and the moment was lost.

Still, although Rome’s time in this world was brief, it was certainly memorable, and more and more people are rediscovering the show every year. Its brief run is also nowadays a strength: convincing someone to watch a show that lasted for eight or ten or fifteen seasons and hundreds of episodes is tough, but 22? You can bash that out in a couple of weekends, tops.

Rome tells the story of one of the most pivotal moments in pre-modern history: the transformation of the Roman Republic, a nation without a king, into the Roman Empire, whose ruler was the most powerful human being in European history this side of Napoleon Bonaparte. It tells the story of Gaius Julius Caesar and his second-in-command Mark Antony, and the woman they both loved, Queen Cleopatra of Egypt. It tells the story of Caesar’s family, the Julii, and their initial friendly relations with another family, the Junii, that turned sour and ultimately led to the most famous son of that house, Marcus Junius Brutus, betraying Caesar in a moment of profound infamy. It is the story of Caesar’s nephew Octavian, a studious and quiet boy who will ultimately become the most powerful man on Earth. It is also the story of a dozen or so historical figures of only marginally less importance: the great orator Cicero, the senators Cato and Cassius, and Pompey Magnus, the great general and hero of the Republic who saw his formidable reputation eclipsed by that of his former best friend, Caesar.

Mark Antony (James Purefoy) and Cleopatra of Egypt (Lyndsey Marshal).

If Rome was all of those things alone, it would still be a triumph, but the show’s masterstroke was to be more than that. Rome tells the story of the rich and the powerful primarily through the eyes of two ordinary soldiers: Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo. Surprisingly, these are not total fabrications, being the only two common soldiers mentioned by Caesar in name in his memoir of the Gallic Wars. With virtually nothing else known about them, though, the show’s writers felt happy to invent their family backgrounds, their relationship and how they interacted with Caesar and the other mighty figures of Roman history over a period of twenty-five years. Vorenus and Pullo are our Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (only somewhat less likely to die), our ground-level eyes on this epic period in history. They’re also our eyes into everyday life in Rome for its ordinary citizens, freedmen, and slaves. There is a tendency in history to get caught up in the soap-opera like events of the rulers and their families, and exciting things like battles and political intrigue, but Rome remembers the little people, the man and woman on the street who wield tremendous power of their own: at several key moments in the series, the opinion of the street results in major shifts in the balance of power.

The show also delves into religion and how the different myriad cultures that make up the Empire interact with one another. Rome was not a monolithic bloc, but instead a grand melting pot of dozens of faiths, kingdoms, tribes and beliefs. One relatively minor character, a Jewish horse-trader and part-time thug named Timon, grows in importance as the complex interactions between Rome and its client-state in Judaea rise to the fore.

Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson) and Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) of the XIII Legion, the ground-level soldiers through whose eyes much of the series unfolds.

Each episode of Rome is a mixture, often very cleverly-constructed, of historical fact, dramatic invention and family soap opera. It may be instructive to give a summary of the very first episode of the series, The Stolen Eagle, to explain how this works:

The episode opens in 52 BC. The army of Gaius Julius Caesar is besieging the Gallic fortress-town of Alesia, where King Vercingetorix has taken refuge with his army. A much larger Gallic relief army has arrived but, anticipating their arrival, Caesar has built an enormous defensive fortification stretching for twenty miles right around Alesia. The lines come under attack from the relief army and also from Vercingetorix’s forces within Alesia, but the Romans defeat the vastly numerically superior Gauls and take Vercingetorix prisoner. Key in the battle is the discipline and valour of Centurion Lucius Vorenus of the 13th Legion, although he is disgruntled with his subordinate Titus Pullo, who lacks battle discipline and frequently breaks ranks to seek personal glory in the field. Pullo ends up in the stockade for striking Vorenus mid-combat.

Back in Rome, the Senate is divided about Caesar’s constant stream of military victories over the preceding eight years. Caesar has brought all of Gaul under Roman control, extending the Republic’s borders and creating vast new provinces to be controlled by his allies. Caesar’s fame has also grown through his brief and mostly pointless, but still unprecedented, military sojourn on the island of Britain. Caesar has won him and his army honour, glory and gold, and his popularity with the common people is at an all-time high. The Senate is divided into two parties: the Populares, who support Caesar, and the conservative Optimates, who are wary of him. Holding the line in the middle is a neutral faction led by the noted orator and speaker Cicero, who privately sympathises with the Optimates but publicly will not speak against Caesar. The Optimates turn to Pompey Magnus for aid. Pompey is a great military hero in his own right but his conservatism and decision to remain in Rome rather than rule over his own provinces in Spain in person has made him popular with the Senate. Pompey is a close friend and ally of Caesar’s, not to mention his son-in-law by marriage, and refuses to countenance betraying him, despite being troubled by Caesar’s apparent idolisation by the masses and his own troops.

The Newsreader (Ian McNeice), who relates the important events of the day and stands in as a useful font of exposition.

In a similar boat is Marcus Brutus, a young man who looks up to Caesar as a mentor but is also a staunch supporter of the Republic who is suspicious of any one man who puts his ambitions ahead of the good of the state. Brutus is a direct descendant of the man who, centuries earlier, killed the last King of Rome and founded the Republic. Brutus’s mother Servillia is also a former lover of Caesar’s, and yearns for his return from war. These loyalties to Caesar have aligned their family, the Junii, with Caesar’s own Julii, the matriarch of which is Caesar’s niece Atia, a hedonistic but also ruthless woman who is an occasional lover of Caesar’s second-in-command, the charismatic but short-tempered Mark Antony. Initial friendly relations start to turn sour, however, as the somewhat reserved and intelligent Servillia finds herself constantly clashing with Atia, whom she considers her intellectual and social inferior. Atia also causes division with her own family: her hot temper and quick decisions befuddle her son Octavian, a clever, reserved and logically-minded boy, and annoy her daughter, the prim and proper Octavia. The feud between the Junii and Julii begins to become more serious when Atia gazumps Servillia at a horse auction to secure the finest steed in Rome. She then sends Octavian to Caesar’s camp with the horse as a gift. The move appears to be thwarted when Octavian is captured by brigands in Gaul, although in reality they are agents in the employ of Pompey.

Pompey’s close alliance with Caesar is tested when his wife, Caesar’s daughter, dies in childbirth (along with the child). Caesar moves quickly to have Atia force Octavia divorce her husband (to Octavia’s distress) and promise Octavia in marriage to Pompey. Pompey is tempted and beds her, but is also being courted by Scipio, an enemy of Caesar’s, who offers instead his daughter Cornelia.

Meanwhile, one of Caesar’s eagle standards has been captured by Gallic raiders and Lucius Vorenus is ordered to recover the eagle by any means necessary. He recruits Titus Pullo from the stockade, reasoning he is the most expendable man in the legion, and they set out to find the eagle. After subjecting local villagers to a mixture of torture and bribery, they learn the identity of the thieves; by happy coincidence, they find not only the eagle but also the captured Octavian. Returning both to Caesar earns them the friendship and respect of Octavian, and the notice of Caesar. Pullo, who values personal loyalty, is very happy but Vorenus, who is morally opposed to Caesar’s growing cult of personality, is less-pleased. Antony and Caesar recognise Pompey’s agent and behead him, sending the head to Pompey to let him know his plan has been discovered. Furious, Pompey marries Cornelia and breaks all ties with Caesar, throwing his lot in with the Optimates.

Atia (Polly Walker), the ruthless matriarch of the Julii family.

As we can see from this, a typical episode of Rome is extremely busy, and does several things at once. It relates an actual historical event, it explains the personal, political and military ramifications of that event and it also has invented, original drama to keep the viewer interested. There’s also an element of simplification involved: the Optimate and Populare parties are never named as such in the show (instead being described as the Caesarean and Republican factions) a lot of the fine detail of the period is missing. For example, Caesar and Pompey are described as co-consuls, but this is inaccurate: it was Caesar wanting to be consul after his return from war, as he might expect having won a series of huge military victories, and the Senate’s refusal to grant him the position that primarily triggered his rebellion against the Senate. There is also some more fantastical invention: Octavian was never kidnapped by Gallic brigands and rescued by two common Roman soldiers. There’s also some action, sex and violence: episodes of Rome can vary on how much of these things they contain, with some episodes being very bloody and others not at all, but generally some of these events happen to maintain viewer interest (how useful that actually is remain debateable).

Rome’s success was grasping the complexity of Roman life and getting not just the bare facts but the everyday feel of that lifestyle across to the audience rather than begging bogged down in detail. One interesting fresh approach, in marked contrast to almost every previous Roman film and TV drama, was showing Rome as a colourful city, the beautiful stone and marble buildings being covered in gaudy paint and obscene graffiti, as was really the case. The Roman military’s iron discipline, such as the arrangement so that each line of infantry will only fight for four minutes before being rotated to the back of the line for half an hour of rest, is also depicted. Unfortunately, despite Rome’s titanic budget, the show frequently wimped out on major battle scenes. The only battle they really had a go at depicting was Philippi in Season 2 and even that is a somewhat bare-bones affair compared to say Lord of the Rings or what HBO achieved on the later seasons of Game of Thrones. As a result, despite Pullo and Vorenus being soldiers, we very rarely seem them actually fighting as soldiers. More frequently they are seen operating almost as henchmen or mercenaries, fighting in very small groups and skirmishes.

The show also, by necessity, lowballs the timeline. The show opens in 52 BC and ends in 27 BC, spanning a period of twenty-five years, but virtually no attempt is made to show the passage of time, aside from the recasting of Octavian with a slightly older actor in Season 2 (Vorenus and Pullo, for example, start and end the show as thirty-somethings). There are also wild inconsistencies in the aging of the children in the show: Vorenus’s son is shown as a newborn in the second episode but appears to be around 10 in the series finale, whilst Caesar and Cleopatra’s son is conceived, born and apparently grows to around 11 or 12 in later episodes. For those who enjoy paying attention to the details, these things are grating, but in the grand scheme of things they’re not very important.

What is important is the characterisation (excellent), politics (rife with intrigue) and how Rome portrays the culture in both the macro and micro, the lavish detail given to religious ceremonies, feasting customs and the architecture of the city, recreated in a lavish open-air set in the Cinecittá Studio in Rome (near where Ben-Hur was filmed). The set was damaged by fire in 2007 but is mostly still standing, and has been used for other productions since filming ended (most notably the Fires of Pompeii episode of Doctor Who). This epic scope was remarkable for television, and arguably not matched until Game of Thrones hit screens four years later.

Octavian (Simon Woods), the boy who would be emperor, and Marcus Agrippa (Allen Leech), a constantly-underestimated young man who turns into one of the greatest generals of antiquity.

Rome is also interesting for how matter-of-fact it is. At different points in the series, both Pullo and Vorenus do things which are deeply amoral, if not outright evil, and also perform great acts of self-sacrifice heroism. Mark Antony is scheming, ruthless and selfish, but also capable of tremendous generosity to the (tiny number of) people who earn his respect, including Atia and Vorenus. Caesar’s motivations, probably the most fiercely-debated in history, are left pleasingly ambiguous in the series.

Could Rome one day return? Perhaps. A few years ago, HBO began developing a new TV series based on Robert Graves’ novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God, which would have used the still-standing Rome sets and would have effectively worked as a sequel to that series, picking up on Octavian as a much older man and the misadventures of his heirs, the insane Caligula and stuttering Claudius. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to take off. A shame, as the power and glory and rich worldbuilding of Rome deserves to be seen on screens once more.

If you haven’t seen the show yet, do yourself a favour and check it out. Beyond the veneer of nudity and violence, it’s a compelling political and character drama, set against a rich backdrop, and well worth viewing.


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Gratuitous Lists: Ten Shows That Should Be Rebooted

We live in the age of reboots. It feels like we can’t go a week or three without someone announcing a remake of a beloved, older property. From Ghostbusters (twice!) to Gremlins to Charmed to a third iteration of Battlestar Galactica, reboots are all the rage, many of them unnecessary or premature. 

But what about franchises that have been left fallow which should be rebooted, where a new version would be welcome because the original is very old, or because it was cancelled ahead of time, or because it never got enough recognition in its time? Here are ten shows which I think could rise again and be done interestingly.

Note that by the term reboot, I mean "a relaunch of an older franchise in a new form." This can be either a continuation of the original series but in a new viewer-friendly format – such as the 2005 Doctor Who and 2017 Star Trek “reboots,” and Sam Esmail’s recently-announced Battlestar relaunch – or a complete, from scratch remake of the original, such as Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica or the recent version of Charmed. Or even the rare franchise which attempts both (such as, arguably, J.J. Abrams’ 2009 take on Star Trek).

Space: Above and Beyond

Originally airing for just a single season in 1995-96, this space opera series focused on the Wildcards, the 58th Squadron of the United States Marine Corps Space Aviator Cavalry, as they engaged in warfare with the alien “Chigs.” Set in 2063, the series depicts a human race who is on the ropes, their extrasolar colonies destroyed and their fleets forced back to the Solar system. It also doesn’t help that humanity also has an ambiguous relationship with the Silicates, humanoid artificial intelligences who have rebelled against their creators, and “In Vitroes,” genetically-engineered humans grown in tanks to help fight both the Silicates and the Chigs.

Space: Above and Beyond wears its influences on its sleeves – particularly the Wing Commander video game series – and, it has to be said, left much to be desired in terms of writing, acting and worldbuilding, particularly the fact that the main characters are simultaneously both elite fighter pilots and experienced ground combat troops. But there are some very good ideas in the show, with the murky three-way relationship between the humans, Silicates and “tanks” providing some interesting drama and contrasted against the alien invaders. Coming from some of the same creative team as The X-Files, the show also started exploring murky conspiracies which added some interesting depth to the show just before it ended on a huge cliffhanger. You’re also not going to forget the appearance of David Duchovny as an android pool shark in a hurry.

Some may feel that the revamped Battlestar Galactica has rendered a Space: Above and Beyond reboot pointless, as that show had a far superior grip on the nuances of space fighter pilots and where the desperate premise gave a better grounding for the idea of the pilots as multi-purpose troops, but there’s something interesting of the purity of a show which focuses so much on humans versus aliens, but has some added complexity to spice things up.

Ultraviolet

This Channel 4 mini-series aired in 1998 to immense critical acclaim and limited viewing figures, but has enjoyed a cult audience to this very day for several reasons. One of them is that it provided the first major role for Idris Elba, who plays supporting character Vaughn. Another is that it took the slightly barmy premise – vampires are real and such a threat to society that a secret government taskforce has spend decades hunting them – and treated it with earnest seriousness. The result is something that feels closer to The X-Files or a spy thriller than a traditional horror series or Buffy, with fantastic writing and direction from Joe Ahearne.

The cast was exceptional, with a pre-Pirates of the Caribbean Jack Davenport and a pre-True Blood Stephen Moyer leading a spectacular roster also including Elba, Susannah Harker and the fantastic Philip Quast (as the morally ambiguous leader of the taskforce), and with the vampires treated more like a disease or force of nature than forces of handsome temptation…at least until the last two episodes, which do much to make the premise and the nature of the enemy more questionable. An attempted American reboot of the show in 2000 failed to go beyond a pilot, although it did introduce Elba to American casting producers and set the scene for his casting in The Wire two years later.

This feels particularly ripe for a reboot. We’ve had a whole string of slightly campy and funny vampire shows in the last decade or so, but nothing with the menacing energy and total conviction that Ultraviolet had, and it’d be interesting to see it go beyond the first season into the more apocalyptic tone the series seemed to be setting up at the end.

Firefly

I mean, no list like this is going to be remotely complete without at least mentioning the great “missed opportunity” of 2000s space operas, Firefly. Joss Whedon’s much-admired (if thematically-challenged; why are we rooting for the Space Confederates again?) space western lasted only 14 episodes in 2002 before Fox managed to kill it through a combination of corporate politics and inept scheduling, but immense DVD sales saw it brought back as the moderately successful movie Serenity in 2005. Comics, a roleplaying game and a very successful board game have kept the name alive, with both Fox and several streaming services saying they’d be happy to consider a new iteration of the series.

Whedon himself is busy at HBO with a new project, The Nevers, and most of the cast is in demand elsewhere, so this is probably off the cards for a few more years, but it’d be interesting to revisit the ‘Verse. A remake seems unnecessary, given that the original cast was mostly pretty young when they made it (Jewel Staite and Summer Glau are still only in their 30s, Morena Baccarin only recently turned 40), so a relaunch sent 15-20 years after the events of Serenity with a presumably very different ‘Verse in play would be the way to go, perhaps a “getting the crew back together” story when a new threat arises. Moreso than a lot of the shows on this list, there's unfinished business here.

American Gothic

No, not the weak-arsed 2016 show, but the terrifying semi-supernatural drama which aired for one, memorable season in 1995-96. Created and written by Shaun Cassidy, produced by Sam Raimi and starring a frankly disturbing Gary Cole (keen to fight back against his “cuddly dude” image from Midnight Caller), who may or may not be the devil, or a servant of the same, American Gothic was a glorious mash-up of Southern Americana and Stephen King on steroids.

Cole played Sheriff Lucas Buck, the seemingly easy-going sheriff of Trinity, South Carolina who collects favours from the townsfolk in return for his help, and then collects in a brutal and often-unexpected fashion. As the season continues, the serialised story evolves into a war for the soul of Caleb Temple (Lucas Black), a young orphan boy with unusual powers. Buck tempts him towards evil, but reporter Gail Emory (Paige Turco) and Dr. Matt Crower (Jake Weber) try to keep him on the side of good. The townsfolk find themselves caught up in the struggle, which starts as a slow-burning, subtle struggle before becoming more apocalyptic as the season goes on.

Way ahead of its time, some of American Gothic’s Southern-drenched horror atmosphere resurfaced in HBO’s True Blood, although that show arguably overdid the camp and humour to negate much of the dramatic impact of the premise. If someone brought back American Gothic with just the right tone, this could be a huge hit.

Dark Skies

As The X-Files ground its way through the 1990s and it became increasingly clear that the writers were making stuff upon the fly with no pre-planning, fans began to wonder what would happen if it had been written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, famed for his mastery of foreshadowing and setting up plot points years ahead of time to make a much more cohesive storyline.

Dark Skies attempted to answer that question. Written by occasional Straczynski collaborator Bryce Zabel (along with Brent Friedman), the show had a pre-planned five-season arc that was going to unfold across decades. The first season spans almost a full ten years, from 1961 to 1969, and focuses on FBI agent John Loengard (Eric Close) and his wife Kimberly Sayers (Megan Ward) as they uncover evidence that the Roswell incident was real, and the beginning of a clandestine alien attack on Earth by the so-called “Greys.” Top-secret US agency Majestic-12 was formed to fight against the alien invaders, led by Frank Bach (a magnificent J.T. Walsh), but the long war has made the organisation ruthless and paranoid, trampling over civil rights and the Constitution.

As the season progressed, it pitted Loengard and Sayers against the aliens, their possessed human slaves and into an ambiguous relationship with Majestic-12, sometimes as allies and sometimes as enemies. Halfway through the season there was something of a rejig of the premise, with Kimberly being taken over the aliens and it being revealed that the Greys are just a front, with the real enemy being a parasitic species called the Ganglions, who have taken control of most of the Greys and use them as slaves. Towards the end of the season there was also an unexpected alliance formed between Majestic-12 and its Russian counterpart, with Juliet Stuart (a pre-Voyager Jeri Ryan) joining the team as a liaison, and the intriguing hint that the Cold War was actually just a feint created by the US and Soviet governments to believe that humanity was weaker than it really was.

The plan for future seasons was fascinating, with the second season expected to cover the period 1970-76, the third season 1977-86 and the fourth season in 1987-99, culminating with a full-scale Ganglion invasion. The fifth season, set in real-time (2000-01) would have depicted the fight back against the invaders. Obviously, these never happened.

With its rich period detail and a much greater sense of narrative direction than The X-Files, it’s a shame that the show was dismissed as just a knock-off. A remake of the same premise now would be extremely interesting.

Babylon 5
Speaking of Babylon 5, it’s entirely possible that J. Michael Straczynski’s own magnum opus, which aired five seasons from 1993 to 1998, could be due a reassessment. With its complex, rich five-year storyline and its cast of impressive, flawed protagonists, Babylon 5 certainly felt at least twenty years ahead of its time and was seriously underrated during its time on the air.

Some may argue that remaking Babylon 5 is redundant: the show completed its storyline (unlike most of the shows mentioned here) and aired 110 episodes, seven TV movies and half a season of a spin-off before wrapping up. B5 has also been influential on the current run of space operas, particularly The Expanse (Daniel Abraham has acknowledged his huge love of the show). But whilst that’s true, it’s also true that getting modern audiences to watch the original series is increasingly difficult. There’s no sign that Warner Brothers are interested in a HD remaster, and in many respects the show has not aged as well as it might have done. The first and last seasons are both very rough, and the guest cast could be particularly ropey. The original cast was, of course, fantastic but a sadly astonishing number have passed away very young, making a sequel series or continuation almost impossible to consider.

At its heart Babylon 5 was an epic space opera custom-designed for the small screen. A reboot handled in the right, respectful way (with Straczynski’s involvement and reusing the original cast in new roles where appropriate) could become the Game of Thrones of science fiction (and it’s worth nothing that George R.R. Martin was a huge fan of Babylon 5). Unfortunately, it sounds like Warner Brothers are not interested in the idea, at least for now.

Macross/Robotech

Back in 1982, Studio Nue and Shōji Kawamori created a hugely influential animated show: Super Dimension Fortress Macross. The show depicted an alien spacecraft crash-landing on Earth in the South Pacific, alerting the planet (then on the cusp of a Third World War) of the existence of possibly hostile alien life. Humanity rebuilt the starship, the Super Dimensional Fortress (or SDF-1), but when they reactivated the hyperdrive, they gave away the ship’s position to the Zentraedi, who were searching for it. After a pitched battle, the SDF-1’s hyperdrive misfired, delivering it (and 70,000 refugees from a nearby island) to the orbit of Pluto. With the hyperdrive apparently burned out, the ship had to head back to Earth on normal rocket power, which took two years.

During this period the crew fought numerous battles with the Zentraedi, who wanted to capture the ship intact and thus were constantly fighting with one hand tied behind their backs. The story featured both soap-opera-ish developments among the humans of the SDF-1 and within the Zentraedi fleet, as well as epic battles and huge revelations about the nature of the fortress, humanity and the aliens. A final pitched battle sees Earth mostly destroyed and the surviving humans and Zentraedi forced to work together to survive in the aftermath.

In 1985 the series was bought by Harmony Gold in the USA, but they deemed it too short for syndication. It was combined with two other unrelated-but-similar-looking shows (Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada) to create a whole new show, Robotech. Drawing mostly on the Macross material for its backstory, Robotech expands the storyline to some thirty years after the original series, giving the Zentraedi a new master race (the Robotech Masters) and their own nemeses (the Invid) and exploring further conflicts with these two races. There was also an aborted spin-off, The Sentinels, depicting the original Macross characters taking the fight into space (and explaining their absence from the other series).

Macross itself also gained a large number of spin-off series in Japan, including the non-canonical Macross II, the prequel series Macross Zero and various sequels, including Macross Plus, Macross 7 and Macross Delta. Due to legal disputes between the Japanese companies and Harmony Gold, these latter series have not been released in the west. However, thanks to a new deal signed between the companies in 2019, there are plans to perhaps remedy this.

Both Macross and Robotech have their hardcore fans, and of course modern anime fans consider it sacrilege to rewrite and re-edit original Japanese material, so any reboot of the series would likely be contentious, whether it was a redoing of Macross or Robotech. But given Netflix’s success with relaunching Voltron and given the end of the long-running legal dispute between the US and Japanese creators, this project must be on their radar. With the much-mooted live-action version of Robotech apparently on the backburner (having gone through two directors in rapid succession), it might be time to see the SDF-1 and its crew back on the small screen again.

Rome

HBO’s epic retelling of the story of the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire to replace it was one of the most lavish TV shows ever made, with colossal sets, rich costuming and fantastic casting. It feels very much like a practice run for Game of Thrones, sharing a lot of DNA with the latter show in terms of brutal writing, graphic violence and, if anything, even more sex.

It was also short and curtailed. HBO aired two seasons in 2005 and 2007, but were left high and dry when the BBC bailed on cofunding a third season. HBO panicked at the show’s huge budget and dropped it, only to later recant after huge DVD sales and increased viewing figures through the second season’s run. By the time HBO felt ready to remount it, the moment had passed and the in-demand cast (including Kevin McKidd, James Purefoy and Polly Walker) had scattered to numerous other projects.

There are various options for a rebooting of the show. One idea might be to simply remake the original with a new cast (and perhaps a bit more fidelity to actual history, such as using Clodia rather than Atia and depicting the Battle of Philippi as the complex, multi-week campaign it really was), since the stories of Julius Caesar, Augustus, Mark Antony and Cleopatra are of course timeless.

A more interesting idea might be to pursue the notion that HBO themselves had five or six years ago which never took off. The original Rome was going to have a time-jump in the fourth season to the time of Jesus, with the descendants of Timon (Atia’s Jewish hatchet-man in the original show) playing a key role in events. However, after the show was cancelled HBO instead considered a fresh adaptation of Robert Graves’ I, Claudius and Claudius the God, previously adapted as a prestige BBC mini-series in the 1970s. Using the Rome sets (most of which are still standing in Italy, although some were damaged by fire in 2007), the story could be rejigged as a Rome sequel, with many characters returning in their later years of life.

UFO

In 1970, Gerry Anderson was best-known as the creator of a series of puppet shows for kids with insanely elaborate production views: Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (among many others). UFO was his first live-action project, combining real actors with his trademark elaborate sets and visual effects, courtesy of the late, great Derek Meddings.

UFO remains an outlier among Anderson’s work. It was adult, strange, paranoid, dark, grim and occasionally barking mad. If Anderson’s other shows (excepting maybe Captain Scarlet) reflected the colourful, optimistic tone of the 1960s, UFO reflected the dark side, musing on drug abuse, the PTSD of war and the paranoia that comes from fighting a secret war against an alien infiltration force.

The premise is that Earth is under attack by alien forces. Under great secrecy, an international organisation named SHADO (Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defence Organisation) is established to defend the planet. The defence network consists of Interceptors, space fighters launched from Earth’s moon; Skydiver, a sub-launched aerial combat craft; and rapid-response ground troops deployed from APCs. The series mostly follows operations from SHADO HQ (hidden under a film studio), where Colonel Straker (Ed Bishop) masterminds the fight against the aliens. Other characters include Colonel Foster (Michael Billington), SHADO’s newest recruit; Lt. Ellis (Gabrielle Drake), Moonbase commander; Colonel Freeman (George Sewell), SHADO’s second in command; Colonel Lake (Wanda Ventham), SHADO’s computer specialist; and Captain Carlin (Peter Gordeno), the principle Skydiver pilot.

If this all sounds a bit familiar, this may be because Julian Gollop “borrowed” elements of the premise for his 1993 video game UFO: Enemy Unknown (released as X-COM: UFO Defense in the US), which kick-started the X-COM video game franchise. This series was relaunched in 2012 with a new game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and continues today.

UFO was way ahead of its time in being dark, rather pitiless in how it killed off characters and rather realistic in how characters were promoted, reassigned or fired, with the cast moving around a lot in roles in a mere 26 episodes. As the show drew to a close, there were interesting revelations about the nature of the aliens and hints that some of the aliens wanted peace. A modern reboot of the show could be very interesting. 

Blake’s 7

At the top of almost every SF fan’s wishlist for a show to be rebooted is Blake’s 7. Created by Doctor Who writer (and creator of the Daleks) Terry Nation, the show ran for four seasons on the BBC in 1978-81. At its height it was – briefly – the biggest show on UK television, even defeating the super-popular soap opera Coronation Street in a ratings war (albeit for the series finale). This was remarkable given that Blake’s 7 was an unabashed, low-budget space opera, complete with wobbly plastic spaceships, even more wobbly sets and rudimentary visual effects.

What made Blake’s 7 work was its utter ruthlessness. The show started off with idealistic crusader Roj Blake (Gareth Thomas) and amoral computer genius Kerr Avon (Paul Darrow) joining forces after being imprisoned by the totalitarian Terran Federation, a blatantly evil version of Star Trek’s Federation (to the unsubtle extent of the Federation’s symbol being the Star Trek symbol turned all the way to the extreme right). Avon and Blake escape with a motley crew of criminals and chancers, find an advanced alien starship called the Liberator and then embark on a war of retribution against the Federation. So far, so Robin Hood.

However, the show had no truck with black and white hats and clearly-drawn lines of good and evil. Blake starts off as a hero, but becomes morally compromised as he becomes more and more willing to accept civilian casualties as “justified” in the battle to pull down the Federation. At a key moment in the series, he is asked if he can accept the hundreds of thousands and probably many millions of deaths that will result from destroying the Federation’s central control computer on Earth, disrupting food and water supplies. Blake says, rather quickly, yes, “because it’s the only way I’ll know I was right.” The moral lines become even more confused when a hostile alien race from Andromeda invades the Federation at the end of Season 2, forcing Blake into an alliance of convenience with his enemies to ensure that humanity is not just wiped out altogether.

In Season 3, Blake disappears and Avon takes control of the Liberator. Initially planning to use the ship for his own selfish ends, Avon constantly finds himself drawn into idealistic struggles and loses his own sense of identity, becoming a hero against his better instincts and loathing himself for it, as he knows he is a fraud. By Season 4, Avon is clearly suffering from paranoia and possibly a personality disorder as he can no longer determine his own motivations. The series ended with what is arguably still the most shocking finale of all time, as the entire regular cast is brutally gunned down by Federation troops, just before Avon – having just murdered a returned Blake after mistaking him for a traitor – makes a futile last stand of his own, leaving his fate ambiguous.

In truth, that finale was more of a happy accident. Another season was planned, which would open with the revelation that the crew had only been stunned and imprisoned, not killed, but the BBC decided to cancel the show on a high, leaving the bloodbath finale as the show’s last word.

Plans for a relaunch have abounded for years, including a Sky One project a few years ago that seemed to fundamentally misunderstand everything about the show and was fortunately abandoned in the planning stages. Many of the relaunch plans revolved around a “next generation” story where a band of new rebels arises, inspired by the legend of Blake and Avon. Paul Darrow would have returned, sometimes in a mentorship role to the new heroes and sometimes as an enemy, having ascended to high office within the Federation. However, the sad passing of Paul Darrow earlier this year seems to have put paid to such talk, making a full remake more likely.

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James Purefoy and Kevin McKidd rule out GAME OF THRONES roles

In an interview with Empire Online to publicise his new TV show, The Following, James Purefoy has confirmed that he will not be appearing in Game of Thrones due to lingering annoyance with HBO over how they ended Rome, and that his co-star Kevin McKidd is of a similar mind.

According to Purefoy, he and McKidd decided on this commitment over lunch:

McKidd and I had lunch the other day, and I said to him, "Have you been asked to do Game Of Thrones?" And he said, "I'd never do it. Because they stole our fucking show." He worked out that if Rome had run for the entire seven seasons that it should have run, we would only have finished it last year. And he feels that HBO did Game of Thrones instead of us, so they stole our show. I kind of agree with him. I won't be doing Game Of Thrones, even if they ask me.

Context: James Purefoy played Mark Antony on HBO's Rome, with McKidd playing the role of Lucius Vorenus. Rome ran for two seasons, airing in 2005 and 2007, and remains the most expensive ongoing weekly show that HBO has ever mounted (the budget for Season 1 exceeded $100 million, or $31 million more than GoT's second season). The show was a co-production between the BBC and HBO. When the BBC decided not to contribute past the second season, HBO cancelled the show for lack of funding and disappointing ratings. Some years later they acknowledged this was a mistake, with the show's performance on DVD and other foreign sales ultimately proving lucrative enough to sustain the show for further seasons.

An attempt was made several years ago by Rome showrunner Bruno Heller to get a spin-off movie off the ground, but this project never made it out of development hell. HBO are currently developing a fresh TV adaptation of Robert Graves's novel I, Claudius (not related to the 1970s BBC mini-series) which some are citing as a spiritual successor to Rome, but due to the much later time period no Rome actors are expected to appear.

Given that HBO was extremely premature - and ultimately proven mistaken - in its decision to cancel Rome, I can understand McKidd and Purefoy's decision not to appear on further HBO series. However, some of their Rome co-stars have chosen to take another view, with both Ciaran Hinds (Caesar) and Tobias Menzies (Brutus) joining Thrones in its third season, as Mance Rayder and Edmure Tully respectively.

Curiously, Purefoy was much more positive about Thrones in an interview eighteen months ago:

If it was the right role on Game of Thrones, definitely. Of course! It’s a terrific series. It’s a great series of books. I love HBO. I’m on record saying that HBO is the best television company in the world, and I believe they are. I think they absolutely understand how to make television that is really, really vital and interesting and visceral, and all the things that television really should be. I’m a big fan of HBO.

 Hmm.

Ciarán Hinds is Mance Rayder in GAME OF THRONES

After a significant amount of speculation, HBO has announced that Ciarán Hinds will be playing the role of Mance Rayder in the third season of Game of Thrones (and, based on the books, presumably for several seasons afterwards).

Ciarán Hinds is a distinguished Irish actor with a long history on stage, television and film. His film work has included roles in John Boorman's Excalibur, Persuasion, Munich and Miami Vice. On TV, he was a main character in the BBC mini-series version of Ivanhoe and Channel 4's Cold Lazarus (the final work by the famous Dennis Potter) before achieving arguably his career highlight of playing Gaius Julius Caesar in HBO's Rome. Hinds's performance as the infamous Roman leader was flawlessly compelling, making the complex character come to life. Hinds's Caesar is, for my money, the definitive depiction of the character. More recently he played Aberforth Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 and was reunited with Daniel Radcliffe in The Woman in Black.

Mance Rayder is a much-mentioned character in the first two seasons of Game of Thrones. He is a former member of the Night's Watch who ultimately found the rules and regulations of the order too much to bear. He turned his cloak and left the Wall to seek a new life amongst the wildlings. Over a period of several years, he rose to become a respect chieftain and battle-commander, and eventually was proclaimed the King-beyond-the-Wall by acclamation. At the end of Season 2 of Game of Thrones, he has assembled an army of thousands of wildlings in the Skirling Pass for unknown reasons.

This is excellent news. I've been a fan of Ciarán Hinds's work for almost two decades and he will be a tremendous asset to the production. It's true that Hinds is older than Mance in the books, but it's also true that we knew the character was going to be older anyway: Mormont spoke of Mance as a near-contemporary in earlier episodes and in Season 1 we learned that Mance was King-beyond-the-Wall more than a decade before the events of the series, making him substantially older than in the books. Dominic West, who was offered the role but declined, would have been a fine Mance, but I think Hinds has the potential to be an even better one.

Hinds is the second Rome alum to be cast in Thrones. Tobias Menzies, who played Brutus in Rome, has also been cast as Catelyn Stark's younger brother, Ser Edmure Tully. Both can be seen in this excellent scene from the first season (as first pointed out by Westeros.org):

ROME movie gets script

Rome's producer and creator Bruno Heller has completed a script for a film set four years after the conclusion to the TV series. The film will apparently be set amongst the Germanic tribes and feature the continuing adventures of Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson) and Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd). Morning Light Productions will make the film in collaboration with HBO, who screened the original, brilliant series.

Excellent news :-)

Wertzone Classics: Rome: Season 2

The year is 44 BC. Julius Caesar is dead, assassinated by a cadre of senators led by Brutus and Cassius. The Julii and Caesar's ally Mark Antony prepare to flee, but Caesar's newly-anointed heir Octavian discovers a legal loophole that forces Brutus to agree to a reconciliation. Unfortunately for the conspirators, the popular mood in Rome swings decisively against them and they are forced to flee. When Octavian and Antony are divided by their own disagreements, the scene is set for a devastating three-way civil war which will eventually culminate at Philippi, one of the greatest battles in Roman history.


Meanwhile, former centurion-turned-politician Lucius Vorenus has seen his family torn apart by betrayal and treachery. Whilst Titus Pullo tries to save his friend's soul, Vorenus is placed in command of the Aventine Collegia and told to keep the peace between the warring criminal gangs. At the same time, the arrival in Rome of Timon's brother coincides with a rise in Jewish nationalism.

Rome's second season picks up at the moment Season 1 ends, with Caesar dead, Vorenus devastated by his loss and the Republic in danger of falling apart into anarchy. Given that the entire storylines for the second and planned third seasons had to be compressed into one season, and only ten episodes at that, the second season moves forward decisively and rapidly. The second season covers a period of fourteen years, and several times multiple years elapse between episodes which makes the season flow slightly less well than the first. In particular, the intrigue between the factions is covered in less depth and Vorenus and Pullo's storyline is to some extent separated from that of the political story, meaning that the Rosencrantz & Guildenstern-like angle from the first season is also diluted although the stories do converge decisively in the final two episodes. Timon's storyline is also given a rather unsatisfactory resolution due to this compression, which is a shame as his 'redemption' from a simple thug in Season 1 into someone with a moral conscience is one of the unsung triumphs of the second year.

Despite this haste, the series remains gripping and compelling viewing. Particularly amusing is the way that politics is depicted as one of the forms of entertainment of the day and how the notable unlovable Octavian wins popularity by surrounding himself with a 'next generation' of young, handsome but capable figures such as Agrippa and Maecenas, and arranges a crowd-pleasing marriage to the young, beautiful and intelligent Livia. These new actors fit into the tapestry of the series very well: Simon Woods replaces Max Pirkis to portray the adult Octavian and does a brilliant job portraying the cold, logical future Emperor, Alex Wyndham is excellent as the debauched Maecenas and Alice Henley is clearly relishing playing the twisted Livia. However, Allen Leech has the most challenging role playing the bumbling, well-meaning Agrippa who serves as Octavian's conscience, and hits the right note between Agrippa's somewhat sappy side and his lethal capabilities on the battlefield (Agrippa's military capabilities eclipse those of Antony in very short order, to the latter's fury).


Of course, the seasoned actors continue to deliver the goods. James Purefoy (as Antony) graduates from a supporting role in Season 1 to command almost every episode of Season 2 with an impressive, theatrical presence in a gift of a role. Unmentioned in my review of Season 1 was David Bamber as Cicero, whose task is challenging (Cicero was one of the most learned, respected and gifted orators of his generation) but his performance is compelling, especially his concluding scene with Ray Stevenson's Pullo in episode six, which may be the single finest moment in the entire series. Stephenson continues his excellent work as Pullo as the character is put through the wringer but, unlike the first season, manages to keep his head above water and even prosper. However, if Season 2 had a unifying theme it would be the journey through Hades and back of Lucius Vorenus. Kevin McKidd is superb as his character is forced again and again into some very dark decisions.

Eventually the dust settles and Rome finishes where it really had to, with Octavian ascending to absolute power with the Senate as little more than his puppet and one of the most famous love stories of all time reaching its tragic ending. Whilst it would have been perhaps more satisfying to see the series go on for longer, it ends brilliantly and the series' relative brevity becomes another one of its strengths.

Rome: Season 2 (*****) is a worthy continuation and conclusion to the story begun in the first season. With excellent effects (the Battle of Philippi is impressively depicted) and jaw-dropping set design (the new set of the Aventine Collegia is genuinely amazing in its size and scale) backing up the superlative writing and acting. As with the first season, there is still a lot of violence, swearing, sex and nudity so the series isn't for everyone, but it is well worth watching for those who can accept these elements as part of the narrative. The second season is available on DVD by itself (UK, USA) or as part of the Complete Rome box set (UK, USA).

Wertzone Classics: Rome: Season 1

Four hundred years ago Lucius Junius Brutus killed the last of the tyrannical Kings of Rome and founded the Roman Republic. Rome's power and might, under the rulership of the Senate, has grown to encompass most of the Mediterranean and its legions hold sway from the Atlantic to the Black Sea and beyond. In 52 BC Rome's most famous general is Gaius Julius Caesar, who in the course of a bloody eight-year campaign has subdued the tribes of Gaul, finally defeating the Gaulish king Vercingetorix at the epic Battle of Alesia. Caesar's returning emissaries and troops have brought much loot from the newly-subdued province back to Rome and his popularity with the people is at an all-time high, to the disquiet of his former ally and friend Pompey Magnus, the head of the Senate. With Caesar determined to use his hard-won power and influence to enact desperately-needed reforms in Rome and Pompey resolved to stand against him, the scene is set for a bloody civil war.


Meanwhile, two of Caesar's soldiers are set on a path that will lead them to greatness. Centurion Lucius Vorenus and legionary Titus Pullo rescue Caesar's grand-nephew Octavian from certain death and recover Caesar's stolen standard. Their names become known and Pullo finds Octavian to be a powerful ally, whilst Vorenus is drawn into the orbit of Caesar and his ruthless lieutenant, Mark Antony, against his own moral judgement.

Rome was a co-production between HBO and the BBC, filmed on location in Italy on an immense open-air set that cost a staggering sum of money to build and was subsequently used by other productions, such as documentaries and an episode of Doctor Who. As a cable production, Rome was free of many of the restraints traditionally placed on American TV drama and featured scenes of violence and explicit sex that some audiences found unpalatable, and resulted in a lot of tabloid coverage, whilst the series' exemplary writing and stunning acting were roundly ignored.

The show is epic, with a complex, multi-stranded narrative following multiple characters across several years of tumultuous history. The political struggle for control of Rome is shadowed by the rise and fall of Vorenus and Pullo's lives among the soldiers and the lower classes. Their viewpoint on events is occasionally reminiscent of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (if they'd been badass Romans and hadn't died), and provides an interesting viewpoint on the narrative. At the same time the story follows the fierce and building rivalry between Caesar's niece, Atia of the Julii, and his former lover, Servilia of the Junii, over who shall have influence in the new Rome. Servilia's love for Caesar is complicated by the fact that her son, Brutus (a direct descendant of the original Brutus who founded the Republic), is aligned politically against him. An apparently minor subplot follows the education and maturing of Caesar's nephew Octavian, whose intelligent, canny mind and innate grasp of politics is limited by a lack of charisma or reliable friends.

Rome is built around the central figure of Caesar, played with significant gravitas and weight by Ciaran Hinds. Remarkably, the show does not seek to humanise Caesar too much. As in history, his motives are not always clear and his tendency to keep even his closest allies in the dark as to his intentions means he is a somewhat distant figure, even when he has lots of screen time. Hinds delivers an exceptional performance, ably backed up by James Purefoy as Mark Antony. Although Antony doesn't truly shine until the second season, Purefoy channels Pure 100% Magnificent Bastard in his role and pulls it off remarkably well. It is also impossible to find too many superlatives for Polly Walker's performance as Atia, which is nothing short of amazing as the viewer goes from hate to admiration to sympathy, sometimes in the course of a single scene. Lindsay Duncan's more stately, reserved and far colder Servilia is also a triumph and scenes with the two women being polite and correct with one another whilst communicating their mutual loathing and hatred with just a tone of voice or well-timed look are riveting. Kenneth Cranham also excels as Pompey, whom a lesser drama would have painted as a simple villain opposed to the 'good guy' Caesar. Cranham makes Pompey an honourable, sympathetic and complex figure.

However, the series lives or dies by the performances of Kevin McKidd as the honourable, stalwart Lucius Vorenus and Ray Stevenson as the headstrong, passionate Titus Pullo, who are our anchors and eyes throughout the narrative. Both actors are excellent, bringing their characters to life vividly and engaging the audience's sympathy even when they do terrible things. In fact, one of the most underrated accomplishments of Rome is its depiction of a time when morality was very different to now. Many of the major characters murder or betray others for the most trifling of reasons, where the consequences, if any, are more a product story requirements than the legal system. Yet the characters remain compelling and watchable.

The are very few criticisms to be made of the first season of Rome (*****). History is sometimes condensed or dramatised for the purposes of clarity, and the sex and violence may be offputting to some, but the writing, acting, production values and pacing of events is superb. The story is riveting, even when it's ending (the first season ends on the Ides of March, 44 BC) is known in advance. The first season is available on DVD both by itself (UK, USA) and as part of the Complete Rome box set (UK, USA).

At least one of the producers of Rome is in contention to work on the forthcoming HBO version of A Game of Thrones, which is most welcome news. If HBO are even half as successful with that adaption as they were with Rome, it will be an excellent series.