The Odyssey — NBC Miniseries (1997)
The whole journey, earnestly told.
The Odyssey is a grand adventure that works best told straight, all of it, with the myth itself as the draw.
You want the whole journey, earnestly told, the way 90s TV did big mythology. Comfort-food spectacle.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: the entire arc, monsters and gods included, with Athena front and center.
Changes: almost nothing. A faithful, sincere telling of the whole poem, with Armand Assante and Greta Scacchi.
Keeps the entire arc, monsters and gods included, with the Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens, and Athena all present. Changes almost nothing structurally. It is a faithful, sincere, whole-poem TV adaptation from Andrei Konchalovsky, with Armand Assante as Odysseus and Greta Scacchi as Penelope.
Whose story is it?
Odysseus’s, classically.
How much time does it ask?
≈176 min (two-part miniseries).
Assante’s Odysseus against the Cyclops, and the whole voyage in one earnest sitting.
Where to find it
Pairs well with: The Robert Fagles Translation (1996), if you want a chaser in another medium.
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More ways home: Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026) · O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) · The Return (2024)