Roar

I first saw this show about a year ago. They aired the whole season over here, because as it was set in Ireland, it saved our networks lots of time and money,and made them look good.

It mixed a good amount of historical detail with myth, and plenty of swords and sorcery. It also was completely devoid of stereotypical irish stuff like leprechauns and dodgy accents (because half of the cast were from NewZealand). This made it appeal to everyone here as well. It was also full of kick ass battles and warrior babes, with some classy characters, and a great villain in the form of Sébastian roche (the peacemaker, merlin) as the Roman Centurion who tortured christ on the cross, and was cursed with immortality. It really was a good story, and should be brought back as soon as possible!

If one sits to watch 5 straight hours of anything, it might get boring. But taken an hour at a time, this was a tremendous series. The scenery and music are great, the story lines are interesting, and 7 years later it is fun to see what these actors looked like back in the day.

I am glad that Sci Fi is re-showing the series. I will record (TiVo) it when it airs, but watch an hour at a time during the winter rerun season.

And I think I will create my own set of DVDs of the series -- too bad FOX Network. I would have paid you a lot of money for DVDs of this series.

Roar is a fictional Irish tale of a young prince who sets on a journey to fulfill his late father's dreams to make an alliance with all the tribes of the Celtic Island to stand against Roman Empires and to avenge his family and beloved death. It is comprised of 13 episodes and each episode contains the layers of myth, magic, and love. The show got canceled due to unknown reasons but It introduced Heath Ledger to the cinematic world.

You must be thinking that, why would I recommend a canceled show to you, or to everyone reading my words, and it is a kind of felony to waste your time, but trust me, It won't kill your time. This series has its strengths and weaknesses, the strength of this show is the transformation of Connor (Heath Ledger) from a young lover to a benevolent leader. He has lessons to teach you. To me, the character has a soul of young Heath Ledger, and it carries the destiny to its end.

All these 13 episodes are continuity of a single tale, yet unfolded 13 different stories and each story has something different to offer. If the first episode has love, family, and betrayal, the last episode has a sense of fascination.

Creator of the Roar coined brilliantly with the elements of myth, valor, love, betrayal, and fantasy.

Roar has some unfamiliar faces, Heath was young, and he played Connor with innocence and bravery, it turns out to be a good adventure for him as he played similar two similar roles (A Knight Tale & The Patriot) in his later part of the career, his dialogues lack the warmth of the words but he did great especially being an 18 year old. Vera Farmiga was another familiar face, she has a limited role and justified to it. Sebastian Roche as Longinus is the standout performer of this series. He's vicious and devious, and although great performance. Music is great, and so are the costumes and cinematography.

Roar is a feast for old school cinematic lovers and especially those who love ancient times without any gore or violence, a must watch to relive the legacy of legendry Heath Ledger.

When the series ran during the summer of 1997, I watched every single episode. Each episode was full of history, excitement, good writing and most importantly, drama. These things are sorely missing from poorly done series like Hercules or Xena, whose only appeal is the size of Sorbo's muscles or Lawless' chest, respectively. Unfortunately, T.V. producers would rather make idiotic shows like "Worlds Most Dangerous/Funniest/Stupidest/home videos" or maybe just another ripoff of Melrose Place (Thank God that's gone!) Roar must be brought back !!

geoffw (see below) is quite right about what happened to this show: poor network marketing support (complicated by network interference with the concept). The Christian Right had nothing to do with its cancellation, and the individual who suggested that is out of touch with the facts.

The fact is that this was another wonderfully original and well-developed concept from Shawn Cassidy (who also created 'American Gothic', among others) that was mis-marketed by FOX. Apparently FOX wanted to grab some of the riches generated by camp sword and sorcery shows like 'Hercules: The Legendary Journeys' and 'Xena: Warrior Princess'. They gave Roar very little marketing support (I remember vague promos showing people in leather armor that gave no idea what the show was about), and what little support they did give it implied it was a Hercules/Xena clone. It wasn't. When the wrong audience tuned in and rejected it, FOX started moving it all over the schedule, again without proper marketing support. They also applied pressure to the producers to dumb it down and make it more like Hercules/Xena. Watch a marathon on Sci-Fi sometime, and you will notice the following network-inspired trends:

1) The importance of Conor's struggle to unite the Irish clans diminishes. By the middle of the series, his efforts in this regard are only described in throwaway dialog and aren't seen on screen. These efforts should have provided the meat of the series. What table scraps we do get imply that the mission was effortless, which it certainly would not have been (clan rivalries historically prevented the Irish from uniting for the common good, which is how the English got a foothold centuries later). We frequently see Conor and Fergus travelling aimlessly about doing good deeds (instead of raising a resistance against the Romans) ala Hercules and Iolaus.

2) The importance of Conor's war band withers over the course of the series, until finally they don't even appear -- even though they are still credited as regular characters. By midway through the show's run, we usually see Conor and Fergus travelling alone, despite the fact that Conor is an important king who should be regarded as a deadly enemy by the Romans.

2) Vera Farmiga's costume becomes smaller and smaller, until the introduction of Melissa George as Molly, after which the character of Caitlin is rarely seen at all. Obviously a misguided attempt to "sex it up", and when the writers couldn't distort the Conor-Caitlin relationship enough to permit romance, they introduced a new love interest.

3) Originally intensely dramatic, with tragic loves, murky intrigues, murders and double-crosses, by mid-run it had become a campy adventure comedy.

4) The character of Longinus was a well-crafted and mysterious villain with tons of potential. Unfortunately, with the tone of the show shifting, he simply wasn't silly enough, so they unsuitably disposed of the character (it violated the integrity of the character to have him fall victim to such a plot) and made the ridiculously camp Diana the sole villain.

This could have been a great show, and it didn't hurt that the cast is actually quite competent. But I suspect that -- after the failure of 'American Gothic' -- Cassidy was willing to do anything to keep his new masters happy. Unfortunately it diminished his vision, and killed the show.

Ultimately, Roar became indistinguishable from the ilk of Hercules/Zena, but because the characters weren't designed to be camp it couldn't compete with that class of show. Had FOX left well enough alone and helped it to find the RIGHT audience, we would at the very least have a great short-lived series to collect on home video. Now, we don't even have that.