The Cleopatras

The Cleopatras is an eight-part historical miniseries produced by The BBC in 1983 and written by Philip Mackie. The series opens up with one of the titular Cleopatras (the one most familiar to us -- the one who later fell in love with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony) being told the stories of all of the other Cleopatras in her family (her mothers, aunts, grandmothers and great-grandmothers) via a history lesson. After the histories of all of the past Cleopatras have been explored, the story continues to detail the life of the last of the Cleopatras, who committed suicide via asp bite after losing the Battle of Actium.

The series was lavishly mounted and there were high hopes that it would become the I, Claudius of the 1980s. Critical reception however, was quite mixed. This might have been due to the wry "horror-comic" tone of the series, when another approach might have suited the material better. Or it might have had something to do with the surreal production design and effects, which made copious use of the "video toaster". Or it might have had something to do with the rather anachronistic progressive rock-esque soundtrack. Whatever the reason, the series vanished into the annals of television and to this day still hasn't had a proper DVD release, although it has been uploaded to YouTube. You can catch the first episode here.


 * Affably Evil: Fluter just wants to be a nice guy, be a good ruler and play his flute. Of course, he'll cold-bloodedly off any family members who cross him but that's pretty par for the course for an Egyptian Ruler.
 * The Alcoholic: Pot Belly and Alexander are epic drinkers. Although Marc Antony could probably drink them both under the table.
 * The Atoner: Pharoah Pot Belly decides to appear to become one of these later in his reign. This isn't because he's generally sorry for the things he's done. He just wants to repair his 0% Approval Rating which came about thanks to his previous "massacre people randomly to keep them in line" method of ruling.
 * Asshole Victim: A great many of the family members who get bumped off during the series are these. Even the children, (although that's probably only because they've been spoiled into insufferability thanks to their rank.)
 * Awesome Moment of Crowning: Happens so often in this series, it actually starts to become mundane.
 * Brother-Sister Incest: A hallmark of the Egyptian Royal Family.
 * Cold-Blooded Torture: Cleopatra Selene and Cleopatra Tryphaena suffer this. One gets her hands chopped off while clinging to an altar for protection and the other gets her teeth ripped out before enduring a slow, painful execution.
 * Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Probably one of the reasons this production flopped so badly. It becomes apparent long before the last Cleopatra takes the throne that this family isn't going to get any better.
 * Driven to Suicide: Fluter's brother (who had his kingdom stolen from him by the Romans) decided to put all of his treasure into three boats and sink them in order to keep the Romans from getting their hands on them. He originally planned to be on one of the boats as it sank, but opted for a quicker, easier death by poison.
 * Easily Forgiven: Forgive an uncle who raped your daughter, murdered one of your brothers and beheaded your son? If doing so means you get to remain Queen of Egypt, sure!
 * Embarrassing Nickname: Pot Belly and Chickpea. Also, the guy with bad body odor who wanted to marry one of the Cleopatras (and who was probably suffering from trimethylaminuria ) was called "Fish Peddler" thanks to his smell.
 * For the Evulz: Pot Belly often jerked around members of his own family, purely for his own amusement.
 * Infant Immortality: Completely averted. This was Truth in Television, sadly.
 * Meaningful Name: Averted in universe. Chick Pea was given his nickname precisely because it had no meaning (and was most likely bestowed on him by his father just to annoy him.)
 * Offing the Offspring: Happened a lot, as did Offing the Siblings, Patricide, etc. The Egyptian royal family was full of Antagonistic Offspring and Evil Matriarchs. If you were an Egyptian ruler and weren't sleeping with a close relative, you were probably trying to kill him. It was just in the nature of how power was acquired back in those days.
 * One Steve Limit: Averted hard. Several members of the family throughout several generations share the same names. (Which is why many family members are identified by second names or nicknames.)
 * Royally Screwed-Up: Of course!
 * Seeking Sanctuary: Several characters try to seek sanctuary from their murderous relatives in temples, but this never, ever works. One wonders why they keep bothering to try it.
 * We Have Reserves: Fluter orders the execution of his traitorous daughter. When someone expresses shock at him offing his child, he calmly explains that he has several more, as if the number of expendable heirs at his disposal were the only issue...