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.
Whose story is it?
Odysseus’s, classically.
Who's here
How each character in this version compares across the whole catalog:
- Odysseus — The whole-journey adventure hero, played earnest, his cunning pure swashbuckle.
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
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More ways home: Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026) · O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) · The Return (2024)
Compare on one axis: How much of the gods do you actually get? (present, as written)