SPQR
The fairly shocking conclusion of last night's episode of Rome had me scrambling over to Wikipedia to see if the producers had just made that up. Indeed, they had not. Reading the history section of the Roman Republic article made me feel like I was reading spoilers for the entire season. But maybe that's okay. In ancient Greece, Sophocles' audience already knew the plot of every play from the beginning - they were drawn from their shared mythic history. Plot surprises weren't really the point.
On the other hand, a friend of mine who hasn't really made it a habit in her life to watch a lot of movies or TV saw a midnight screening of Alien on Saturday night for the first time and was happily, properly terrified. So that's a reminder that surprise does heighten experience. I think in the future I'll try to avoid reading about who died when (who will die when) during Caesar's rise.
On the other hand, a friend of mine who hasn't really made it a habit in her life to watch a lot of movies or TV saw a midnight screening of Alien on Saturday night for the first time and was happily, properly terrified. So that's a reminder that surprise does heighten experience. I think in the future I'll try to avoid reading about who died when (who will die when) during Caesar's rise.