Bruno Heller

In Rome (2005), ordinary soldiers have friendships to maintain and domestic troubles to manage while others compete to run the city. Heller, who created the series with John Milius and William J. MacDonald, gives those concerns enough room to matter. We recommend it because the people with little say in how they are governed still have lives worth following. The history becomes easier to care about when somebody has a grievance we can understand.

Heller wrote 11 episodes of Rome, giving him a substantial hand in how that balance works. We were grateful for Ray Stevenson’s warmth, because it gave us someone to care about in a society capable of such cruelty. The opening takes time to settle, and the brutality is a real obstacle to recommending it without qualification. Yet there is enough interest in the soldiers’ daily lives to make patience worthwhile. Heller and his fellow creators understand that a friendship can deserve as much attention as the contest to run a city.

With The Mentalist (2008), which he created and ran, Heller moved to the repeatable business of a crime procedural. Simon Baker leads a series built around a former fake psychic who solves crimes by observing people, a premise that suits Heller’s interest in psychological insight. A consistent character voice and an ensemble that works together can sustain that format for a long time. Repetition is also its weakness: once the method becomes familiar, another case can feel too much like the previous one.

Heller then created Gotham (2014) and co-created Pennyworth (2019), working with director Danny Cannon on both. One centres on a young James Gordon in a corrupt city; the other follows Alfred Pennyworth’s early life in an alternate 1960s London. His interest in building a detailed city connects Gotham to Rome, despite the change in genre. Start with Rome, and give the opening time to settle before deciding whether to stay.