What historical era would you most like to see HBO do as a series?

[Owain Taggart]

I doubt even HBO would have the balls to do it but I'd like to see a biographical mini-series about the life of Adolf Hitler done in the same style as their John Adams mini-series.

There already was a miniseries a few years ago. It's not completely accurate but there are better uses for HBO's resources.

Yep, it was pretty good and Robert Carlyle made a good Hitler.

 

[Admiral Shran]

But I'd really like to see an HBO miniseries set in the Middle Ages - a time period that a lot people do not know much about, or have a lot of misinformation about. Maybe something set during the First Crusade - showing the conflict from both Christian and Islamic perspectives - something that doesn't judge either side but instead presents the story as objectively as possible.

While I think it would be cool the mass media and political shows would constantly be doing segments on it about what the content is. You'd have Fox News/MSNBC, etc constantly saying it's anti christian and/or anti muslim or whatever so I doubt HBO would go there.

I don't know. Ridley Scott did something similiar in Kingdom of Heaven and I don't recall much protesting from the mass media.

 

[Nowhere Man]

Pre Revelotion Colonial America leading up to the Revolution. I guess you could start it at the end of the Seven Years war.

 

[Listener4]

I'd be interested in a series set in an ancient society such as Egypt, Greece, or Babylon.

 

[Ruaidhri]

I'd love to see the historical setting mixed with SF, and I'm thinking particularly about Leo Frankowski's Crosstime Engineer series of novels, but adapted to leave out Frankowski's extreme chauvinism.

Engineer is displaced in time to Poland in the early 1200's--right before the Mongols sweep through eastern Europe. He uses his 20th century knowledge to modernize and arm Poland to withstand the hordes. I always loved the story, though the writing was pretty immature.

 

[Lookingglassman]

Third Reich series. The series could deal with the lives of different characters from the beginning of Hitler's rise to his demise. To show how a family goes from fanatical support of Hitler to bitter hatred as they lose everything (including family members) as the war progresses would be interesting to watch.

 

[S. Gomez]

I was going to say the Napoleonic Wars as well. (Can you tell? ) A Captain Cook bio-miniseries would also be fascinating.

But here's another option no one's said yet: the Persian Wars. Ancient times have been well capitalized on film and TV, but there could be more featuring Greek society at its peak. And there's definitely room for a slightly more historically accurate rendition of the Battle of Thermopylae; there are so many other cool battles and stories from that conflict, too.

ETA: Oh, and Marco Polo visiting China would be fun to see as well.

 

[Vanyel]

The Salem Witch Trials could be compelling to watch.

 

[God of Gor]

No offense to your choices, but I'd rather have a show set in the days leading up to and covering the Sengoku period in Japan and possibly the early days of the Tokugawa shogunate. Roughly, 1450-1600. It would also be a nice change up from the focus on Western Civ.

 

[Mistral]

I'd love to see the historical setting mixed with SF, and I'm thinking particularly about Leo Frankowski's Crosstime Engineer series of novels, but adapted to leave out Frankowski's extreme chauvinism.

Engineer is displaced in time to Poland in the early 1200's--right before the Mongols sweep through eastern Europe. He uses his 20th century knowledge to modernize and arm Poland to withstand the hordes. I always loved the story, though the writing was pretty immature.

This would be fun-but you're right, the writing was fairly immature.

 

[Owain Taggart]

No offense to your choices, but I'd rather have a show set in the days leading up to and covering the Sengoku period in Japan and possibly the early days of the Tokugawa shogunate. Roughly, 1450-1600. It would also be a nice change up from the focus on Western Civ.

Yeah, hence my idea about a series chronicling the building of the great wall of China. Something not focusing on Western civilization would be fresh and would open up HBO shows to more audiences.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Its a bit overdone but I love King Arthur. So my dream "historical era" would be the 5th Century. An adaptation of Cornwell's "Warlord Chronicles" should cover the HBO sex and violence quotent quite well.