Say what you like about reality TV: You usually know what you’re getting when you dig into a Naked And Afraid or a Married At First Sight. (Hypothermia and the world’s worst case of buyer’s remorse, respectively.) Hence the delight with which we’re greeting the announcement of ITV2’s Bromans, a new British reality show about bros dressing up and pretending to be Romans.
Not just bros, either; the show also features the bro’s girlfriends, who apparently prance around in non-era-appropriate bikinis, helping their beloved centurion wannabes prepare for challenges like wine-making, sculpting, and various athletic competitions, all dressed like cast-offs from Spartacus: Blood And Sand. It’s not clear what other aspects of Roman life—slavery, rampant assassination, eating lying down—will be included in the show’s regimen; from the footage released on recent British morning news shows, it mostly looks like a lot of push-ups, that old barometer of proper Roman virtue.
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