ABC's summer miniseries about ancient Rome, Empire, tanked in the ratings, which is not exactly a good sign for HBO's brand new Rome (Sundays, 9 p.m.), another epic set in the days of Julius Caesar. Featuring many of the same historical figures and events as Empire, Rome is an ongoing series debuting with a 12-episode first season. That gives it license to move a little more slowly than Empire did, and it begins with divisions between Caesar and Pompey, while Caesar is off fighting barbarians in Gaul. Like Empire, Rome splits its focus between well-known historical figures such as Caesar, Pompey, Marc Antony and Brutus, and fictional characters who give the writers a little more leeway for creativity.
While Empire inserted a gladiator into the important events in Roman history, Rome uses a pair of soldiers, whose names are taken from historical records but whose lives are fabricated. This sort of muddled approach to storytelling—mixing history with fiction, grand figures with made-up commoners—leads only to confusion and inconsistency, even in a show as meticulously researched as Rome (the press notes go on and on about every little detail, down to the fabrics of the costumes, being accurate).
Since these histories have been told so many times, adding the fictional characters is an easy way to spice things up. But Rome makes no case for why we should care about soldiers Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) and Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson), who are interesting enough characters but don't have the compelling grandeur of the political and military movers and shakers. The show trots out all the familiar tropes of sword-and-sandal epics, but other than its indulgence in gratuitous nudity (a perk of being on HBO), it does little to set itself apart from any number of other adaptations.
Rome is at its best, actually, when it's at its most soap-operatic, especially in Polly Walker's delicious performance as Atia, Caesar's niece and the mother of Octavian, who would eventually rise to the level of caesar himself (and was the main character in Empire). With her devious grin, sly cunning and downright nasty demeanor, Atia is the Joan Collins of ancient Rome, and the show comes to life whenever Walker is on screen. The rest of the time, however, it's just another bland history lesson, with a little added sex and violence.
The fall TV season doesn't officially start for another month or so, but Fox is getting a jump on things by premiering their heavily-hyped new series, Prison Break (Mondays, 9 p.m., premieres August 29 at 8 p.m.) this week. The high-concept show—in which the entire season follows engineer Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) as he attempts to break his brother out of prison—has been advertised for so long that it once appeared that it would be a spring mid-season replacement. With such expectations, it's perhaps inevitable that Prison Break is a bit of a letdown, although the pilot leaves lots of room for potentially interesting developments.
Michael gets himself arrested for bank robbery so he can end up in the same prison as his brother Lincoln (Dominic Purcell), whom he believes has been wrongly accused of murdering the U.S. vice president's brother. With the prison's schematics tattooed all over his body and an insanely detailed plan to manipulate various inmates and prison officials, Michael sets events in motion to free Lincoln.
There's no doubt that Prison Break's concept is fascinating and original, but the writing so far (by creator Paul Scheuring, writer of the odious Vin Diesel movie A Man Apart), is full of crime clichés and outrageous coincidences, and the pilot just feels like the extra-long setup to a mediocre action movie. Give the show points for originality, but it's going to need much improvement to live up to its high concept.