Welkom bij de Romeinen (2014) User Reviews

The British Did It Better

[Uberhamster · 7/10 · 3 January 2016]

Welcome bij de Romeinen, "Meet the Romans", is a sort of sequel to "Welcome in the (Dutch) Golden Age". A presenter interviews the key figures in Roman history, reporting on the past as if it was happening today. I've got five words for this and those are: The British Do This Better. Whether it's Monty Python (or the obscure Complete And Utter History), Blackadder, or Horrible Histories, all of them are better than this mediocre attempt to be funny.

To be fair, although they also get a few facts completely wrong, on the whole it's informative for children and it does a real attempt to liven up material that is (sadly) not popular. As said before, I just didn't like the humour; the constant cries of "Applause!" and laughing about your won jokes are pretty annoying also.

"Educational" show without proper research, "humour" without being funny

[gieldereuver · 4/10 · 21 October 2016]

Witnessed the shooting of the show and watched all the episodes. Although the show has some nice film work and the selection of episodes and subjects is done well, I still think the whole thing is done poorly. The show is supposed to be educational, but the research is done very poorly, containing lots and lots of mistakes. Not only small mistakes which slip in easily or have to do with budget concerns! In some cases the character are supposed to be telling facts, while talking pure nonsense! Where the show's writer got this nonsense from remains a mystery to me: proper research from scientific sources would never provide you with such misinformation. It's very clear that the research was done very badly (the advice of people on set were not taken and the historical consultant was used poorly). The clothing and make-up department clearly didn't do any research into Roman Age fashion at all! Apart from that, the acting is bad and the jokes are stupid. It looks to me as if most actors thought: "Humor for kids, that means I just have to be brainless." The acting is done over the top, the jokes are dull and repetitive. Again, a nice effort, but they could have done it so much better. There is a thing like having limited possibilities and there is just being naive.