I, Podius

I didn’t know I needed this in my life, except now, I’ve listened to it in it’s entirety at least 5 times. As a 6-year-old who was glued to the screen (my parents were not terribly vigilant about adult content), I loved/was terrified by this miniseries, and I am so happy to find others who have the same fascination with it. I read the books in my 20’s, rewatched the series at the same time, now listening to the recaps and I’m still loving it all. John and Elliott make so many incisive and hilarious points, I laughed out loud so many times. Thank you, John and Elliott, and Jordan, for making such a delightful podcast.

…About every 5 minutes, and you can stand the scatting of the theme song, and having Augustus referred to as some other character you’ve never heard of, ..it’s worth the listen. The hosts add a lot to watching the series, which I now have on a US DVD player-compatible set of discs. This series holds up. I watched it in the 70’s as a teen and I read the books. Now watching it again I appreciate it more. The series is like a play. Some nudity; pretty racy for its time, implied gore. The dialogue is superb. It puts the AI- written series of today to shame. The actors are superb, as the hosts aptly point out. They also tell us in which other shows these actors have made an appearance. They refer to relevant history. They do make me laugh. My favorite line was in the first episode when the Romans were complaining about what terrible slaves the Brits were. The Romans were busy slaughtering each other, the Gauls, the Germans and the Brits so they could be an empire. It would be great if this behavior ever ceased among mankind. But alas. This series is as relevant today as it was yesterday and will be in the future. ETA: episode 5. Still going on about cardboard sets. I thought they’d get through it without saying Boss Nas since Augustus is dead. But no. If you fast forward for many digressions, about 1/2 is listenable and useful.

I want to like this so much. But the constant cackling of the co host makes this nearly unlistenable. Hodgman is a gem.

I discovered this podcast after recently watching I, Claudius all the way through for the very first time. I was hoping the podcast would be more than what it is unfortunately. The best parts of it are when they comment on the careers and best performances of the actors, but besides that most of this program is a rote scene-by-scene explanation where they mock the low budget more often than necessary. The most annoying aspect is that one of the hosts actually seems to be knowledgeable about the factual history the story is based on, but his cohost always belittles him for it and rushes them to the next scene. I understand it’s scripted and it’s a character dynamic but it’s frustrating that a podcast about a show that is rooted in fascinating history barely scrapes the surface of it. Skip it and go watch I, Claudius again or the two or three episodes of The History of Rome podcast that cover Augustus’ reign.