Those About to Die
Directed by: Roland Emmerich, Marco Kreuzpaintner
Written by: Robert Rodat
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Iwan Rheon, Sara Martins, Tom Hughes, Jojo Macari, Alessandro Bedetti
Original Release: July 18, 2024 (Peacock, USA); July 19, 2024 (Amazon Prime Video, International)
Available on: Amazon Prime Video
I binge-watched Those About to Die on Amazon Prime with Dr Gabb during one of his expeditions to the North. His critical response was to fall asleep on the settee during Episode Six, and to wake up about ten minutes before the end of Episode Ten. “Was the second half as crap as the first?” he croaked. He took no great notice of my reply, but went straight to: “Have you made that coffee yet?” My reply was that the series was and is crap from beginning to end, and here is my reply at proper length.
What should have been a thrilling immersion in the politics and violence of Rome under the Flavians turned at once into a predictable plodding by numbers. All that kept me awake was that I am not yet a broken-down shell of a man in the last extreme of senescence. It also helped that, when his mouth fell open, I thought Dr Gabb had died in his sleep and that my mother would put the blame on me. But, personal considerations aside, Those About to Die has no real historical understanding, and a cast of characters so uninspired that I would have been happy to see all of them fed to the lions.
Let’s start with the good, since that won’t take long. The set design is excellent. The recreation of Rome is lavish, and the series spares no expense in making the city feel alive. The streets look properly crowded, and the racing stadium is an impressive set piece. Unlike many other attempts at Rome on screen, this one at least gets the grandeur right. If you watch historical dramas solely to see how convincingly they recreate ancient cities, then Those About to Die might be worth your time. But if you also expect engaging characters and a plot that doesn’t feel as though it was cobbled together by a committee, you will be disappointed.
The show wants to be a grand, sweeping story about power, politics, and spectacle. It tries to balance multiple subplots: Emperor Vespasian (Anthony Hopkins) dealing with the succession crisis between his two sons; a bookmaker named Tenax (Iwan Rheon) who is trying to rise in the world through chariot racing; a mother named Cala (Sara Martins) attempting to free her children from slavery; and, of course, a steady flow of gladiatorial combat and intrigue. In theory, this sounds like a recipe for an engaging historical drama. In execution, it’s an overstuffed mess. None of these stories is compelling, and the characters are so thinly written that it’s impossible to care about their fates.
Take Tenax, for example. His role in the series is meant to be that of a roguish anti-hero, the street-smart bookmaker who plays the system to his advantage. The problem is, he’s not particularly clever, nor particularly charming; and the big “reveal” about his parentage is one of those moments that the show clearly thinks is significant but which lands with a thud. The Romans, particularly in this period, were not worried about who begot members of the lower classes unless it had a direct impact on political power or financial inheritance. That being the case, why should the audience care?
Then there’s Cala. It is obvious that Amazon was never going to push a Roman epic without ensuring that at least one of the leading characters was there to satisfy modern diversity quotas, and so we get Cala, a black woman from one of the North African provinces. There’s nothing wrong with including characters who don’t fit the traditional Roman elite mould—after all, the empire was vast and diverse—but the way Cala is written makes her feel like an afterthought grafted onto the show to tick a few corporate boxes. She spends half of her time throwing herself around in exaggerated lamentation and the other half doing implausibly clever things that feel less like actual storytelling and more like a desperate attempt to make her character look impressive. Her three children are even worse: barely developed and existing solely to provide her with an emotional arc that the writers seem to think is compelling, but isn’t.
Titus, played by Tom Hughes, is another weak link. He is supposed to be the heroic, noble counterpart to his scheming younger brother, Domitian, but he lacks any screen presence or authority. He looks nothing like the real Titus and carries none of the weight of someone who has just conquered Jerusalem and is on his way to becoming emperor. And then there’s Berenice, who should have been one of the most interesting characters in the series—after all, she was a Jewish queen and the lover of a Roman Emperor. Instead, she is wasted, appearing occasionally with no lasting impact.
The one exception to the lifeless cast is Jojo Macari’s Domitian. He plays the role with full pantomime villain energy, which, while not historically accurate, at least makes his scenes enjoyable. His expressions, his sneers, his temper tantrums—they’re all wildly over the top, but at least he’s memorable.
On the other hand, his “fucktoy”—not my word, but the one used by the other characters to describe him— played by Alessandro Bedetti, has a pretty face but a horribly indifferent body, which makes him another waste of space. I might add that the mainstream taste by persons of quality in the Ancient World was for boys of or somewhat below my own age. They would have had sex with someone of his age only to humiliate him. But the Amazon executives either didn’t know that or didn’t want to be that naughty. Oh, and I’ll further add that the fucktoy had moments of real intelligence, and I was expecting him to rise from bed companion to political adviser. Richard Blake would have used him to good effect. Amazon, once again, wasted him.
The action sequences are as uninspired as the plot. The show should have been a blood-soaked, violent spectacle, but the gladiatorial fights are generic; the chariot races lack energy; the political intrigue is more of a dull background hum than anything engaging. Those About to Die doesn’t know what it wants to be. It gestures at Game of Thrones with its political scheming, Gladiator with its arena battles, and every generic prestige TV drama with its overly serious tone. But it fails to commit to any of these elements in a way that works.
So, Those About to Die is yet another forgettable, corporate-driven attempt at historical epic that cares more about looking expensive than telling a good story. I wouldn’t sit through a second season, and if I were forced to choose between rewatching even a single episode and taking my chances in the Colosseum, I’d ask for half an hour to decide.
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