Latest proof that western civilisation is over: Sky Atlantic’s Domina reviewed

I’ve been looking at the reviews so far of Sky’s new Romans series Domina and none seems to have noticed the most salient point: it’s crap. This is almost more depressing than the fact that the series got made in the first place, for what it suggests is this: our culture is now so debased that even our arbiters of taste can no longer tell the difference between quality and mediocrity.

Domina follows the story of Julius Caesar’s great-nephew Octavian, from when he was a member of the triumvirate to his apotheosis as Caesar Augustus. You’d think you couldn’t possibly go wrong with such fascinating historical material, rich with gore, scheming, politicking, backstabbing and will to power. But Domina says: ‘Hold my cervisia!’ and renders it dreary beyond endurance.

Instead of viewing these events from Augustus’s perspective (men, eh, what did they ever do for us?) we instead see them from the perspective of his wife Livia Drusilla.