Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ear… (Sorry I just couldn’t resist). This is one of the only shows that I refuse to miss each week. And its over! The series ends Sunday night at 9 on HBO. If you’re not familiar with it, the show follows the fortunes of the ruling families of Rome around the period when the Roman Republic died and the Roman Empire began. At the same time, it follows the fates of two commoners, former roman legionaires Marcus Verenus and Titus Pullo. Its fascinating to watch how the writers intertwine the fates of these two commoners with that of the nobility and how the actions of one affect the other.

If you like the Sopranos (and I do), you’ll love this show. Its basically the same thing except set in ancient Rome instead of NJ: Sex, violence (lots of both), intrigue, family members killing each other off for wealth and power, the internal moral struggles of the characters (yep pretty much the same as the Sopranos). Since its HBO, they show pretty much everything. I think the thing that makes Rome riveting more than anything else is that the character study. The same is true for the other HBO originals I also like, the Sopranos and Deadwood. Of course it helps that Rome is just really well written, with the movie-quality production. In my opinion there is no other primetime drama that can hold a candle to Rome.

There are a couple of odd things about this show. For one, each hour long episode typically covers what occurs over a period of weeks to months instead of days or hours. Sort of the complete opposite of 24. Not only that but as much as six months of time can pass between the episodes as well. So that by the end of the second season, next Sunday night, they will have covered a period of approximately 20 years from the time Julius Casear completed conquering of the Gauls in 50 BC to the death of Marc Antony in 30 BC. That just shows the scope of the material they are trying to cover. Even at this rate it will be another 4 or 5 seasons before they get to everyone’s favorite emperors Caligula, Claudius, and Nero and 50 seasons before the Western Roman Empire is finally destroyed.

Thats one of the other weird, yet great things about this show. Because it is all well known history, you know on a large scale exactly what is going to happen. Yes Casaer dies (Et tu Brute?), and you know who kills him, and how the killers finally going to meet their fate. And you know Antony will hook up with Cleopatra. But its done so well, you don’t care. You want to see how they are going to work the history into the show. There is some artistic license taken but for the most part the show is historically accurate. And if you don’t know Roman history at all, even better. You’ll probably enjoy it even more because what happens will be a surprise for you.

I’m really disappointed that the series is ending on Sunday. HBO should start showing the whole season again soon and its available through HBO On-Demand. If you don’t have HBO, run, don’t walk, to BestBuy or Amazon and get the DVDs for the first season. Or at least Netflix them. I know this is starting to sound like and ad for Rome or HBO, but it isn’t, Rome is just that good. Season 2 will probably be out on DVD before the end of the year. Since Rome is the only reason I keep HBO, I will probably cancel it after the final episode.

Help Save HBO’s Rome Series! Details for the Online Petition.

If you’re interested in an abbreviated timeline of Roman History the BBC has a decent one: Roman Timeline.