Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Colosseum’ On History, A Docuseries-Drama That Examines The Roman Empire Via Its Most Famous Arena

Colosseum is an eight-part series made in what is now History’s signature style: A docuseries that’s punctuated by dramatic live-action scenes. It attempts to tell the history of the Roman empire via the history of its most famous arena. “The Colosseum is the Roman empire distilled to its most basic essence,” says one of the many experts interviewed for the docuseries.

COLOSSEUM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: After a warning about scenes of intense violence, we see two shirtless men waiting to do battle inside the guts of the Colosseum in Rome. “When we’re out there, you’re not my friend; you’re my enemy,” says one to the other.

The Gist: The first episode concentrates on the gladiators who often did battle there, sometimes to the death, but not as often as people have come to believe. It was completed in 80 AD, by Titus, who took over as emperor after the death of his father Vespasian, who started the project. It was the grandest arena in all of Europe, holding around 50,000 people to watch battles between humans and animals and between humans and humans.

As the empire spread, people who were enslaved in the various conquered nations were scouted and trained to be gladiators, with the promise of freedom if they survived the highest levels of combat. We see the story of Priscus (Timothy Blore), a young slave who had exceptional fighting abilities. As he came through the ranks and fought for various Roman military personnel, he was eventually sent to Rome and trained with Verus (James Oliver Wheatley), then considered the best gladiator in the empire. On the Colosseum’s opening day, the two of them were set to fight — the winner was set free, the loser likely didn’t make it out of the building alive.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Colosseum is in a similar format to History’s other drama-docuseries hybrids, like Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln. But its historic vibe and the largely British cast makes us think of another one of its historic miniseries, The Bible.

Our Take: Something about this docuseries-drama format that History specializes in has always felt awkward and disjointed to us. It’s likely because we’re seeing these dramatic reenactments, often with some pretty good acting, cinematography and effects, as vignettes with no through-line or plot of any kind. The characters are just avatars for the real people they’re playing, and not given a chance to develop and give the audience something to root for or against.

We saw a lot of that while watching Colosseum. The acting, while a little overdramatic at times, is generally pretty good during the reenactments. But because there isn’t a particularly meaty story arc for any of the characters, there isn’t much for the various actors to latch onto besides the baroqueness of the setting and the brutality of what the gladiators went through.

The fight scenes could be clearer, but in general they give viewers the idea of just how tough the matches the gladiators had to fight could get. And, yes, there is a lot of brutal violence, because in the matches where the combatants fought to the death, there are a lot of slit throats, decapitations and other bloody demises.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Scenes from upcoming episodes of Colosseum play over the credits.

Sleeper Star: James Oliver Wheatley is particularly effective as Verus, who was as arrogant as they came but ended up becoming a great friend and mentor to Priscus.

Most Pilot-y Line: In an effort to make the gore as realistic looking as possible, some of the CGI blood spurting actually looks completely fake, taking away from the image of brutality that the producers wanted. Watching eight episodes of that is going to be brutal for the audience, but not in the ways the producers had in mind.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Between the CGI blood, the disjointed dramatic scenes, and the somewhat stilted expert interviews, it feels like anyone who wants to get the history of the Colosseum in Rome would be better served reading its Wikipedia entry than slogging through 8 hours of Colosseum.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.