President Harry S Truman one said "The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know."  There's a lot of truth in that, and that's the reason that I enjoy documentaries so much.  There's a lot of history that I just never learned, and much of it is fascinating.  The Eastern Roman Empire is a good case in point.  Did you know that the Roman Empire grew so large that it was basically split into to parts?  What's more amazing is that when we talk about the fall of the Roman Empire, we're really only talking about the western empire.  The eastern one lasted for 1000 years, well past Rome's glory day.  It's now known as the Byzantine Empire, though the citizens at the time continued to call it the Roman Empire.  It was only when reviewing a DVD on the Crusades that I found out about this whole in my education.  Luckily another DVD has come to the rescue and partially filled this gap in my knowledge:  TLC's Byzantium:  The Lost Empire.  Written and hosted by popular TV British personality and archeologist John Romer, the show has a wealth of information about this forgotten (here in the West at least) empire.  The only problem is Romer himself.  He's much to animated and excited about his subject and often digresses into long and often pointless stories that don't really add to a viewer's understanding of this time in history.

The show takes a more or less chronological look at the empire.  It was founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 330 when he moved the imperial capital from Rome to Byzantium.  That city was renamed as Constantinople (it is now known as Istanbul) and became one of the most glorious cities in the world.  When the Western Roman Empire fell in 476 and darkness spread across Europe, Constantinople was flourishing, a center of learning, art, and trade all through the Dark and Middle Ages.

In addition to Constantine, a good amount of time is devoted to Emperor Justinian I and his powerful wife Empress Theodora, who together attempted in the sixth century to recreate the glory that was once the Roman Empire.  They also were instrumental in rewriting and revising the Roman Legal Code.  Other major rulers such as Basil II and John II are discussed too as well as the impact that Muslims and the Crusades had on this Christian nation.  The fall of the empire and the events that lead up to it makes for some interesting viewing too.

The big political events aren't the only things that this show concentrates on however.  The art and architecture of the period is also examined, and the way that people lived and worked.  This makes the show well rounded and more interesting than just a litany of dry facts.

Even though there is a lot of information to be gleaned from this show, and the period that it is examining is interesting, there are some flaws that really make this documentary hard to watch.  The first and most grievous flaw is having writer John Romer also narrate and present the show.  His love for the subject is evident, but his grand gestures and constant hand waving are as distracting as the purple prose that fills this show.  The narration is so ebullient that it is almost laughable at times.  Everything is "wonderful", "amazing", and "glorious."  Apparently nothing was mundane or even average.  The way he describes things is so over-the-top that it's hard to take the program seriously at times.  In an early episode he describes a church in these terms:  "It's as perfectly mysterious as the finest natural crystal.  The walls, the columns seem to be nothing more than an illusion and simply fade away."  Later he talks about the dome and connecting entryway:  "It's like a vast net of stone and brick slung over this central space... this strange, mysterious space..."

Another shortcoming is that John Romer is more interested in what things looked like than what actually happened.  He seems to spend more time explaining what a building looked like than discussing the events that took place there.  He also tends to get lost in small details and that makes it hard to see the big picture.  While explaining how the ancient Greeks made olive oil and what crops they planted was mildly interesting there were way too many digressions.  This documentary, while not bad overall, would have been a lot better if someone had edited it a bit and made it more focused.

The four episodes that make up this series are presented on two DVDs.  The set comes in a single width keepcase with a second 'page' to hold the other disc.

Audio:

The two channel audio was adequate.  The haunting music which works so well with the show doesn't have the dynamic range that it could, the highs are clipped and the mids are a bit muffled, but sounds okay.  John Romer's voice is easy to understand and the few sound effects are forceful enough.  This disc doesn't have the last word in audio fidelity, but it suits the subject matter.

Video:

This documentary is presented with the rather unusual aspect ratio of 1.56:1, a ratio that's usually seen in commercials.  (It's a compromise between 4:3 and 16:9 so that either display can present the image with minimal letterboxing or pillarboxing.)  The show is not anamorphically enhanced, but given the ratio, that wouldn't really help a lot.

The image itself is only so-so.  The level of detail isn't what I was hoping it would be, people and objects that are far away from the camera are a bit fuzzy, even when they are in focus.  The lines aren't as tight as they could be, and finer details tend to be lost.  The colors are even though a little on the drab side, but the black levels are fine.  On the digital side, things aren't very impressive either.  Aliasing is a big problem with diagonal lines having a stair step effect, and when the camera pans across an image the fine lines tend to jiggle as if they had a life of their own.

Extras:

Unfortunately there are no extras.

Final Thoughts:

I didn't know much about the Byzantine Empire before watching this documentary, and now I feel that I have at least a passing knowledge about the empire and its people.  In that respect the documentary series is a great success.  Unfortunately it succeeds in spite of John Romer rather than because of him.  His over-the-top delivery style and turgid prose are hard to take at times, and the too frequent deviations make the show seem unfocused.  Viewers who want to learn more about this subject don't have a lot of alternatives, and you could do worse than this series but it doesn't have a lot of replay value.  Make it a rental.