A.D. The Bible Continues is the follow-up to the hit miniseries The Bible from the same creative team. This time around, they take on the Acts of the Apostles, picking up the story from from Jesus’ crucifixion into the birth of his early church by his first followers.

While the original The Bible miniseries primarily concentrated on the events set forth in the book, this new series takes a less literal approach, introducing new characters and situations along with the biblical events from the first 10 chapters of Acts. The drama focuses on the political and religious atmosphere in Judea during this early stage of Jesus’ church.

High Priest Caiaphas (Richard Coyle) is worried that Peter (Adam Levy) and the other apostles will poison the minds of the Jews with tales their false king/prophet. He asks Roman governor Pontius Pilate (Vincent Regan) to have soldiers guard Jesus’ tomb to ensure that the apostles cannot claim that Jesus has risen from the dead. However, after the soldiers witness the event, Pilate has them executed for “abandoning their posts”, which causes some unrest in the city. And tensions only get worse as Pilate finds himself the target of a would-be-assassin, and orders the daily execution of Jews until the man who tried to kill him is identified and brought to justice.

Meanwhile, Jesus appears to his Apostles after his resurrection, telling them to spread his word. So Peter (Adam Levy) and the other perform miracles in the name of Jesus and start to amass new followers. However, this also makes them bigger threats to Caiaphas and Pilate, who want them arrested and silenced.

This series is a lot more brutal and violent than its predecessor. With murderous assassins, executions, political drama and intrigue, there’s a really interesting portion of the series that enjoyed. However, it never quite reaches the level of excitement I hoped it would get to. The series is torn and confused as to what type of story it wants to tell—a biblical account or a historical drama. It tries to blend the two but is not quite successful with either.

While I found the political drama to be the more interesting side of the series, there was not enough of a historical background presented at the start of the series. Instead, the viewer is forced to try to piece together the political makeup of Judea at the time. This could have easily been established with some sort or narration or text at the start of the series, which would have made the show easier to follow from the start.

The series introduces many female characters who are not mentioned in the Bible, and provides interesting drama around these women in the lives of the Biblical characters. We see Peter leave his teenage daughter Maya (Helen Daniels) to go off to spread the word of Jesus, and there are interesting relationships established between Pilate and his wife Claudia (Joanne Whalley) and Caiaphas and his wife Leah (Jodhi May). While often women of this time are viewed as subservient, we see both of these wives try to break out of those traditional roles.

I found the biblical portion of the series to be a bit more confusing. The Apostles are hardly ever referred to by name in the first few episodes of the series. This makes it really difficult to figure out who is who—they were basically all just “Peter” and “not-Peter” to me. I think the writers expected people to just know who these characters were, and if you didn’t there was no easy way to figure that out—the cast was completely different from the original miniseries.

The biblical portions of the series were also poorly written and repetitive at times. It seemed like the same thing over and over again—either the apostles were on the run, getting arrested, or baptizing some bad guy who had now seen the light and had become good. And other scenes just felt like they were checking things off from the source material. The series does these quick cutaways to things like people speaking in tongues with no explanation. You feel like you should know what that was in reference to, but if you don’t know the biblical stories, these scenes add nothing but confusion. During the resurrection a man resembling Heimdall from Thor appears over the tomb—I had no idea what was supposed to be an angel until I watched the Blu-ray bonus features—he looked more like a glowing Roman soldier.

And the dialogue wasn’t that much better at times—some scenes that were probably meant to be inspirational ended up coming off really preachy or hokey. For example, in one scene a woman witnesses another talking back to her husband, and afterwards she asks her, “How do you speak to your husband like that?” to which the woman responds “I learned it from Jesus”. And with that the woman was converted to Christianity.

The special effects are also inconstant throughout the series—while some scenes looked amazing, others landed more comical than inspirational—especially in scenes where wind is used to show the presence of Jesus, and a couple of the desert scenes that were poorly green-screened, making it clear you were looking at a set.

While it sounds like I have mostly negative things to say about this series, there are things I did enjoy—I just wish the series had delved more into the historical/political intrigue and less on the preaching of the apostles. Plus, there is no closure to the series/story. Unfortunately, it ends on a cliffhanger, and the show was not picked up for a second season.

The Blu-ray presentation is really good for the most part. The dialogue is clear and the surround channel is well utilized to bring the viewer into the action on screen. The video quality looks excellent in most scenes, except for a few poorly-executed effects. As for bonus material, there some really well-done behind-the-scenes featurettes spread across the discs that total around 45 minutes. I found these interesting and I think fans of the series will really enjoy them.

What’s Included:
Episodes: (8:38:14)

• All 12 Episodes of the series:
  “The Tomb Is Open”, “The Body Is Gone”, “The Spirit Arrives”, “The Wrath”, “The First Martyr”, “The Persecution”, “The Visit”, “The Road to Damascus”, “Saul’s Return”, “Brothers In Arms”, “Rise Up”, “The Abomination”
• 1080p / Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
• Closed Captioned

Extras:

• Continuing the Bible (5:41)
  Executive producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett and co-producer Annie Macnee discuss how this sequel to The Bible came about and the stories from the bible that it covers. Also includes behind-the-scenes footage from the set.
• Casting A.D. (11:20)
  Since the original actor who played Jesus in The Bible was unavailable for A.D., the producers decided to hire an all new cast. In this feature we meet many of these cast members, who talk about their roles. Includes interviews with executive producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, and cast members Juan Pablo Di Pace (“Jesus”), Vincent Regan (“Pilate”), Joanne Whalley (“Claudia”), Richard Coyle (“Caiaphas”), Jodhi May (“Leah”), Adam Levy (“Peter”), Greta Scacchi (“Mother Mary”), Chipo Chung (“Mary Magdalene”), Emmett J. Scanlan (“Saul”), Pedro Lloyd Gardiner (“Matthew”), Babou Ceesay (“John”), Denver Isaac (“James”), Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (“Thomas”) and Fraser Ayres (“Simon the Zealot”).
• The Past Comes Alive (14:41)
  Get a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of the series. The cast and creators discuss what’s it’s been like filming on location in Morocco. Includes interviews with executive producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, director of photography Tim Fleming, co-producer Annie Macnee, associate producer Mishy Turner, and actors Chipo Chung, Juan Pablo Di Pace, Richard Coyle, Joanne Whalley, Vincent Regan, Jodhi May, Marama Corlett (“Tabitha”), Emmett J. Scanlan, Ken Bones (“Annas”), Adam Levy, Babou Ceesay, James Callis (“Antipas”) and Greta Scacchi.
• Touring the Sets (11:12)
  A behind-the-scenes look at the massivee sets created for the series—the temple, the streets of Jerusalem including the marketplaces and the safe house, Caiaphas’ stately home, and Pilate’s palace. They talk about the benefits and challenges of building these enormous sets on location in the Moroccan desert. Includes interviews with executive producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, co-producer Annie Macnee, production designer Alan Spalding, pastor Charles Jenkins, and stars Vincent Regan, Richard Coyle, Pedro Lloyd Gardiner, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Adam Levy, Chipo Chung and Reece Ritchie (“Stephen”).
• The Fabric of the Time (8:43)
  Head into the costume tent and make-up trailer for a look at the elaborate outfits created for the series. Includes interviews with costume designer Luciano Capozzi, makeup designer Crista Schoeman, and stars Chipo Chung, Claire Cooper (“Herodias”), Vincent Regan, James Callis, Richard Coyle, Greta Scacchi, Joanne Whalley, Farzana Dua Elahe (“Joanna”), Marama Corlett and Juan Pablo Di Pace.
• Recreating the Power of God (5:38)
  A look at how practical and visual effects were used to enhance scenes and bring the power of God to life. Include interviews with executive producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, VFX supervisor Martin Davison and actor Lonyo Engele (“The Angel”).

Final Thoughts:

Fans of the series will be please with the technical presentation and bonus material on this Blu-ray. However, new viewers would probably be better off checking out the original The Bible series. While this follow-up has an interesting political and character drama at the heart of it, it seems confused as to what type of show it wants to be. The blend of political and biblical drama doesn’t quite work. The biblical events often seem more thrown in as checkpoints rather than an integral part of the story, and feel a bit repetitive after a while. And since the series wasn’t picked up for a second season, viewers will be left with a cliffhanger of an ending.