By now you know the news that HBO will make a lot of its older content available to Amazon Prime subscribers starting May 21 as part of a lucrative deal. The network's current top-tier content, like Girls and Game of Thrones, will remain off-limits to non-subscribers. But a rich vault of quality premium television is suddenly being opened up to a huge base of viewers, a prospect both exciting and daunting.
[snip] ... here are some gem seasons of other HBO shows (a few original films) to start off with when the archive goes live.
Rome: Season One
Now that Game of Thrones is in its fourth season, we definitely can't say there won't ever be a TV show as epic as Rome. But there's still something special about Rome, especially that first season. A ridiculous, massively-budgeted retelling of the rise and fall of Caesar, it had a bunch of solid actors doing the best work of their lives (James Purefoy, Ciaran Hinds, Polly Walker, Kevin McKidd, Ray Stevenson) and ludicrous amounts of sex and violence, celebrating the Roman empire as a debauchery hall-of-fame. The second season came apart at the seams quickly, but Season One tells a complete story and it does it very nicely.
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