Colosseum

I understand the need for revenue, but dang.... trying to watch streaming was a battle to its own. The production was as good a documentary as ever. There was no shortage of stories, so I guess greed has to be the only reason.

Love the programme but would like to challenge the statement from Shelley P. Haley regarding how the Romans viewed the afterlife.

I believe she stated that was nothing only an underworld of darkness. This is simply not true. The Romans believed you were judged on your life. The underworld was the receptacle of all departed persons, of the good as well as the bad, it was divided into five parts: the first may be called the previous region; the second is the region of waters, or the river which they were all to pass; the third is what we may call the gloomy region, and what the ancients called Erebus; the fourth is Tartarus, or the region of torments; and the fifth the region of joy and bliss, or what we still call Elysium.

I would have thought that such an intelligent person would have known this.

I just happened to notice the first episode in the channel guide and decided to give it a chance since it was a topic that's usually interesting. So I used my DVR to grab all the episodes and then I forgot about it.

When I got around to watching the first episode, I was stunned by the quality of this production. I learned things in each of the episodes that I did not know. And I thought I had a pretty knowledge of the subject.

They hit the ground running with the first episode "The Gladiators". This first episode was full of information that is not widely known about these men and the lives they lived. After this first episode I was hooked. I watched all the rest in quick succession. And none of the rest of the episodes were a let down. All in all it's a very compelling production. If you have any interest in history, and especially the Roman Empire and specifically the Colosseum. This is a great show to grab. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Gave up after 30 mins of episode 1. The endless droning of a selection of boring talking heads, sorry 'academics', tediously intercut every minute with 'action sequences' was too much. Basically daytime TV crud. The only thing missing were adverts evert 10 mins for funeral services, stair lifts, online gambling and teeth whitening. I assume the endless emphasis on gore, mutilation and death was for the American audience, who like that sort of thing. No brain needed to watch this. A real shame as 8 episodes is enough to go into detail on an internationally fascinating subject. The facts are all there it's just horrendously badly scripted, presented and edited. Go read a book on it.

Watching episode 4 out of 5 that has been realized so far and they have mentioned one "poet" of Rome as an actual historical source. Poetry generally isn't considered historical fact, especially when it is paid for by the emperor, a fact briefly mentioned once or twice. Oddly enough I can't seem to find any work by the poet they mentioned to read his work myself. They have "Roman historians" on never giving the details as to what makes them a Roman historian since clearly they didn't live through it details as to what degree and from where as well as any relevant experience they have would be nice, and well necessary according to my 6th grade English teacher and every teacher since in research papers. If they are going to present it as a historical factual documentary I expect enough information to be able to continue or further my research behind the short snips in the show and yet it feels more like a teaser based in rumors than a documentary.