Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Those About To Die’ On Peacock, A Drama About The Bloody Gladiator Battles In The Later Years Of Ancient Rome

When we write our reviews, the “Gist” section sometimes takes us the longest to write, especially if we can’t make heads or tails of what actually happened in the first episode of a series. A new “swords and sandals” drama streaming on Peacock , directed by Roland Emmerich , fits that description.

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Opening Shot: A man gets thrown against a wall by a soldier and is threatened over the money he owes.

The Gist: The person he owes money to is Tenax (Iwan Rheon, who you may recognize from Game Of Thrones ), who runs one of the biggest gambling halls in Rome. He takes bets on the horse races going on at the Circus Maximus racetrack. The race teams are split into 4 factions — Red, Blue, Green and White — all of which have been owned by the same families for hundreds of years, all of whom are powerful and wealthy.

‘Those About to Die’ on Peacock Looks Poised To Capitalize On Everyone’s Obsession With The Roman Empire

But by 79 CE. Rome had become a place where vice and criminality became commonplace. After a bloody civil war, Flavius Vespasian (Anthony Hopkins) became emperor, and began building the Flavian Amphitheater, an intimate venue that is going to bring gladiator battles to the people, and Vespasian tells the owners of the factions that the new amphitheater will be owned by the people of Rome, much to their dismay.

His sons, Titus (Tom Hughes) and Domitian (Jojo Macari), vie for their father’s favor in their own ways. Titus is a noted general, and Domitian is a well-regarded politician. Titus conquered Judea to get them the funds to create the stadium, and Domitian is getting animals and gladiators to do battle from all over the Roman Empire.

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Part of that empire is in the African region of Numidia, where Aura (Kyshan Wilson) and Jula (Alicia Edogamhe), daughters of a businesswoman named Cala (Sara Martins), are taken by Roman soldiers when Aura kills one that was about to rape Jula. Their brother Kwame (Moe Hashim), who hunts dangerous animals for the empire to bring to Rome, sees his sisters captured and tries to help them escape but gets captured himself. Cala goes to where they’re being held and encourages Kwame to show the Romans his fighting skills so he can go to Rome as a gladiator, and take his sisters with him, rather than all of them be sent to the mines.

Back in Rome, Titus tries to fight off an insurrection by starving peasants. To settle the matter, Vespasian calls a chariot race.

For the hastily-organized race, Tenax pulls his favorite driver, Scorpus (Dimitri Leonidas) out of the brothel he’s in. When a particularly desperate bettor comes in with shares of the Blue Faction and makes a very specific bet, Tenax makes sure Scorpus does what he needs to do for Tenax to secure those shares.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There have been plenty of movies and series about the Roman Empire, from Rome to Gladiator to I, Claudius . Though Those About To Die was giving us heavy Caligula vibes, and not in a good way.

Our Take: Those About To Die was adapted from the Daniel P. Mannix novel by Robert Rodat ( Saving Private Ryan ), with Roland Emmerich ( Independence Day ) and Marco Kreuzpaintner directing (Emmerich directed the first episode). So there are some pretty well-established people behind this show. The result, though, is an overly-ambitious story with way too many characters, a lot of wooden acting, and no real sense by the end of the first episode of what the show is really about.

The only recognizable face in the series is Hopkins, but the two-time Oscar winner is generally there to give grumpy admonishments to his sons, preside over races and fights, and not much else. He could have been played by just about any elderly British actor, but having him there as a draw is a smart idea, because the rest of the characters are generally non-distinctive and hard to keep track of.

There are lots of stories going on, involving the Flavius family, the owners of the four Factions, the African family that has come to Rome as slaves, and the various women that are in the orbits of all of them. But instead of slowing down and exploring these stories one or two at a time, Rodat and Emmerich throw them all into the proverbial soup pot, shifting from locale to locale in a way that’s disconcerting at best and boring at worst.

It really took us the entire hour to even figure out what this show overall was about, even with the copious exposition provided by Tenax’s narration at the beginning of the episode. That’s a really bad sign of things to come in a show with characters that flit in and out so quickly that the viewer barely even registers who is related to whom and what their role in this saga actually is.

Sex and Skin: It’s ancient Rome, so there’s lots of sex, both of the same-sex and opposite-sex variety. There’s a fair amount of female toplessness, but no full-frontal for either the women or men.

Parting Shot: Someone inspects a modified pin on a chariot that broke down during the match, killing its driver. Someone cheated!

Sleeper Star: None, really. Most of the acting in this series, outside of Hopkins, is of the “I’m declaring things in a posh British accent” variety.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I keep you around for your mouth and your ass. Not your advice,” Domitian says to one of his assistants.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Those About To Die is too muddled, with too many characters, to even enjoy for the sex and violence, of which there’s quite a bit.

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.

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