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A&E / 720 Minutes / 2006-2007 / Unrated / Street Date: November 1, 2011
Robocop an art and design historian? Who knew?
Proven within the hallowed halls of Engineering an Empire - another massive megaset from The History Channel - host Peter Weller isn't just a crime-fighting cyborg or a William Burroughs doppleganger: Dude's an accomplished scholar of Roman and Renaissance Art with accreditation and everything. Weller doesn't just read cue cards as he hosts this set of programs - he participates.
And this integration lends a degree of across-the-board appeal to what (for most viewers) might be relatively dull material. Not to say that the investigation of architectures and histories of various civilizations isn't interesting, but there is a lot of material here, and having Weller holding our hand through it is most definitely an entertaining asset.
We're taken through Greece and the world of the Aztecs, Carthage and China and Russia. And this new edition of the series is far more complete than its predecessor: This six-DVD set houses all episodes of the series, plus the Egypt and Rome specials that weren't included on A&E's first release of Engineering an Empire.