Barbarians

Like air shooting out of a balloon, any positivity and hopefulness generated by the slick trailer fizzed away pretty quickly as this is a long, long, long way from HBO's Rome, early episodes of The Lost Kingdom - or even stage-bound I Claudius.Instead we get really really mean Romans -riding horses using stirrups, mind you - and a Go-Girl heroine inspiring her tribesmen. This is all supposed to lead to the famous Roman defeat and loss of eagles - but the by-the-numbers scripting and under-whelming production values make this look like a so-so network adventure show. I was expecting more given the excellence of Germany's Babylon Berlin but the early episodes of this one left me wanting it less.