I enjoyed watching the ABC mini-series Empire, which aired recently on ABC. I noticed a number of watchers criticized the series for its historical inaccuracy. I get the point, but it seems weak sport to pick on a gladiator flick. I mean, Ben Hur is subtitled "A Story of the Christ," but that's not really what one remembers, is it? We remember it for the arena, the chariots, the blistering homosexual subtext.

Anyway, I watched Empire primarily because I was led astray by a TV reviewer that promised me a lesbian scene during the Roman orgy in episode 3. I think there may have been about 10 seconds of that, and even now I'm not really certain if I ever saw anything. But that's okay with me, because I liked the series even without it. There was something fun about its schizophrenic movement back and forth between lowbrow gladitorial combat and a middlebrow political plot.

By sheer coincidence, I happened to be playing Gladius on my GameCube at the time the series was on, so I was really excited when Empire made use of various gladiatorial classes, such as the secutor, a very quick-moving fighter type that I was using in my game. At one point in the series, the two lead characters, Augustus and Tyrannus, become captives at a notorious gladiator prison called Arkham. Now there's historical accuracy for you! I laughed myself to pieces over that.

In a few weeks, I plan on watching the HBO mini-series, Rome. I just discovered its being co-produced by the BBC, which can only be a good thing as far as I'm concerned.