Britannia is fast-paced escapism for those who thought Vikings a tad tame. [3 - 16 Aug 2020, p.5]

The longer you stick with this nine-episode season, the more the players reveal themselves. It’s a big part of how Britannia,”written and co-created by Jez Butterworth (“Black Mass,” “Edge of Tomorrow”), transcends its genre roots.

The first five of the nine episodes provided for review also have echoes of “Spartacus,” and “Rome” slopped with a sauce of graphic novel-style drama. That’s not the worst a person can say about a series.

Violence it has. Also, domestic drama. Dynastic intrigue. A soupçon of the supernatural. Set in A.D. 43, during the second Roman invasion of the British Isles-to-be, the nine-part Britannia also displays what might be an unfortunate side effect of the rise of bingeable drama--the seeming nonchalance with which writers are approaching a storyline.

Britannia doesn’t slow down long enough to be as engaging as the HBO show, but ultimately, it has enough going for it that if you like such fare--not everyone is a “GOT” fan--you can get into the Amazon show.

The modernisms are amusing, and they invite us to take Britannia as a sendup--but then the series doesn’t commit to that approach, as it lapses back into straight-up battle drama. It’s trashy, but, perhaps, not trashy enough.

improved with each episode, humourous in places , found it a very enjoyable trip, look forward to season 2

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I just finished watching the first season of Britannia and I honestly can’t tell you if I like it or not. I go back and forth and it really isn’t even something I can break up into too many pros and cons. That is because it is all so intermixed that there isn’t a clear winner and loser portion. It is about the Roman invasion of Britannia in 43 AD led by Roman Aulus Plautius. David Morrissey who played the Governor on Walking Dead does well enough, it isn’t him, or it really isn’t any of the actors. They all do well. I suspect instead I have an innate issue with how they changed the history of the event. It is to be expected they would change it, this is a supernatural historical fantasy version of the invasion. The druids are portrayed as supernatural (the leader being 2000 years old) and living in what most would consider squalor. It just didn't work for me. The second part that really bugged me was the references to Rome. It is historically true that Rome (via Julius Caesar) failed to conquer fully Britannia, they did however install a King who was subservient Rome. It was the first time that Rome had started the system of client Kingdoms when Caesar enthroned Mandubracius as King. Rome then kept diplomatic and trading links with Britannia until they finally came back in 43AD and invaded to take it fully. Whereas the show acts like Caesar left, the Britannia went on about their lives and never heard of Romans again for 90 years. I think with my penchant to read a lot of history, precludes me to not liking the show overall. It isn’t that its written badly, just it isn’t true and I can’t really recommend the show to others because of that. I watch too many people believing things are factual because they watched a show that is fiction that I can’t go with this show either.

It's not as difficult as it should be to imagine such poor writing and direction. I can't understand why some people take a story with a fantasy bent to mean most everything everyone does is absurd. A few absudities: ancient armies did not attack at night, one girl cries and screams for 80% of her on-screen time and spends the other 20% telling some guy to **** off repeatedly. To say the dialogue was childish is the best light i can put on the dialogue. It's an awful mix of 1940's Americana and Monty Python. The whole effect of the show is to leave you feeling like you have witnessed a school yard full of petulant children trying to, at once, outdo each other and show how mature they are. Utter rubbish.

Absurdly stupid, not sure they could have made this any more historically innacurate if they tried, maybe boudicca should have had giant space robots, at least the nonsense would be interesting nonsense instead of just nonsense.