After a rocky first episode in which director Roland Emmerich can’t seem to get a grip on his multiple plotlines or his budget, Peacock’s original series “Those About to Die” (mostly) settles into its personality: a dirty, violent, grimy, often-half-naked take on swords-and-sandals storytelling. The director of “The Day After Tomorrow” and “2012” jumps headfirst into a genre that’s about to get a bolt of rejuvenation in the form of the highly anticipated “Gladiator 2,” from director Ridley Scott. If “Those About to Die” sometimes feels like a neutered, TV version of that project – despite a budget reportedly north of $140 million – it’s still entertaining enough for fans of violent period pieces to serve as a hearty appetizer to that likely full meal. And it seems particularly appropriate to watch a show that’s basically about spectacle disguising political machinations in the heat of an election year summer.
The draw for viewers on trailers and posters for “Those About to Die” has been the involvement of Sir Anthony Hopkins as Emperor Vespasian, but he’s, somewhat unsurprisingly, a minor player in this game. The show belongs more to the men and women over which he rules (including a few familiar faces), but mostly made up of new performers. It’s hard to say if it’s a help or a hindrance to be regularly reminded of the wheelings and dealings of Ramsay Bolton upon seeing the visage of Iwan Rheon as the manipulative Tenax. On the one hand, it reminds one of a show that undeniably does this kind of multi-arc, violent costume drama better. On the other, Rheon knows the assignment, elevating material that sometimes gets a bit stale with just a suspicious glance.
Rheon’s Tenax, the man who runs the gambling around the chariot races and gladiator fights of the day, is only one of many characters that populate “Those About to Die.” If there are leads, those titles would probably go to the natural-born leader Titus (Tom Hughes of “The English”) and his brother Domitian (Jojo Macari) as the sons of Vespasian, two men who approach potential leadership in very different ways. Where Titus nervously plays political games out in the open, Domitian plots behind the scenes to undermine him, hoping to take a throne that he seems duly incapable of holding.
While Titus and Domitian play their own game of thrones in scenes that sometimes feel repetitive, a better subplot plays out far from the capital in the form of Cala (Sara Martins), a woman whose three children have been captured by the empire. Martins imbues Cala with an emotional gravity and nuance that the show often lacks, playing her as a woman whose intellect and commitment have often been underestimated. She’s easily the best thing about the show. All three children get arcs, but the best of the first half of the season belongs to Moe Hashim’s Kwame, a lion tracker who becomes one of the city’s most impressive gladiators.
And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. There are chariot-racing Spaniards (Pepe Barroso, Eneko Sargadoy, Goncalo Almeida), the wealthy patricians played by equally scheming Gabriella Pession & Rupert Penry-Jones, and effective supporting turns from Dmitri Leonidas as the most popular charioteer of the era and especially Joannes Johannesson (another “Game of Thrones” vet) as an ally for Kwame. If it sounds like it might get too crowded and cluttered, it sometimes does.
Lion fights, chariot races, and backroom politics – “Those About to Die” checks a lot of boxes, and does so with more artistic gravity than similarly shallow projects. And yet there’s something missing in Robert Rodat’s (“Saving Private Ryan”) plotting that keeps the show from being consistently entertaining. It’s the kind of period drama that works in fits and starts – every time I was about to write it off as a misfire, something would bring me back. It could be a character choice by Martins, Hughes, or Rheon, or a bit of that massive budget showing itself off. Just as an episode threatens to get bogged down in its political machinations or the sense that there are just a few too many characters to track, Rodat will pull out an impressive fight scene or emotional plot twist to get the chariot back on track. But then his show loses speed again around the next turn.
The truth is that it’s a somewhat dry season for original television, which should help “Those About to Die” find an audience. And dropping it in between the Republican and Democratic National Conventions feels like it’s probably not a coincidence. We may be hundreds of years from gladiator fights and chariot races, but the backroom dealings, violent betrayals, and class struggles of “Those About to Die” can sometimes feel surprisingly timely.
Five episodes screened for review. All ten episodes drop on Peacock on July 18th.
