Heath Ledger’s Forgotten Fantasy Show From 1997 Is Virtually Unwatchable Now

Skip to content One of Hollywood’s greatest actors was Heath Ledger, and that’s hard to argue with, given his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight and his posthumous Oscar. But it took a long time for him to become one of the industry’s most respected figures, with roles in 10 Things I Hate About You, A Knight’s Tale, and Brokeback Mountain, among others along the way. Still, as happens with pretty much every actor who starts young, there’s also a part of his filmography that has been forgotten. In Ledger’s case, one of those projects is a fantasy series from the ’90s. He had shown some familiarity with the genre in a few other projects, but this show was actually his first starring role.

You’ll hardly ever hear anyone talk about it these days (and it wasn’t exactly popular back then either), but it was an interesting attempt to tell a story involving magic, Romans, and Celtic warriors. At the time, the idea seemed pretty promising, but it ended up running into several problems that hurt it both technically and conceptually. However, Ledger himself looked back on it with a lot of gratitude in the 2000s. Curious to watch it? Well, first you have to actually find the show.

In 1997, Fox began airing Roar, which followed Conor (Ledger), a young Celtic prince. After his family is murdered, he has to take over as the leader of his people and try to unite different tribes to fight the Romans. It’s simple and straightforward, and because of that, it seemed to have some potential at first (also, it got decent ratings in its first days). However, the show was never meant to be just a historical adventure, as it started to lean into fantasy, adding Celtic mythology, prophecies, religion, and supernatural elements to the story. That gave us a mystical force called the Roar, which Conor is taught to “hear” and which is connected to life and nature, as well as the antagonist Longinus (Sebastian Roché), a Roman centurion cursed with immortality after killing Jesus with the Spear of Destiny.

You can see that it was pretty ambitious right from the start, and it sounds like a lot to process in a single series, right? Roar had an impressive number of ideas, and what’s even more surprising is that all of this was already being developed within a single season. But there’s a reason for that: TV in the ’90s had started to really embrace the fantasy genre thanks to Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, and creators Shaun Cassidy and Ron Kowlow wanted something completely different that would be less campy and more “gothic and romantic.” Fox decided to take a chance on it, giving the production a 13-episode commitment and heavily promoting its launch.

Still, the biggest reason to watch Roar was Ledger. The actor was only 18 at the time, and in his first starring role, he already had an amazing amount of charisma. You can’t really say he makes the show memorable, because unfortunately, an entire series can’t rely solely on the person carrying it on screen, but some people could already see a star in him. The project helped Ledger become better known outside Australia, get valuable on-camera experience, and eventually catch the eye of producer Dean Devlin, who invited him to audition for the famous film The Patriot. But, of course, besides the lead actor, the cast as a whole is what made the story worth noticing, as it featured Vera Farmiga and Lisa Zane.

The problem with Roar, though, wasn’t necessarily that it had too many ideas, but rather the way those ideas were presented. The series would often introduce a new supernatural element before it had enough time to develop the previous one, making its world feel less developed and more simply overcrowded. In other words, the production had a pretty good intention of trying to do something new with fantasy on TV, but the execution was another story.

Roar wanted the audience to take its universe seriously, but it also relied on concepts that were so over-the-top that it was difficult to fully buy into what the show was going for. The problem became even more obvious when the Celtic narrative started mixing with the religious and supernatural sides. In one episode, the plot might be focused on the fight against the Romans, for example, but in the next, you’re suddenly expected to process the fact that there’s now magic or some new mythological element involved. You can understand the idea was to keep increasing the scale of the story, but the planning needed to make all of it feel natural is pretty weak. Naturally, this also affects the characters, as Conor was supposed to be the main hero, but the show was still figuring out how to make him someone people would want to follow for several seasons.

Because of that, Roar was eventually canceled after only eight episodes had aired (with the other five being released a few years later), so a lot of its potential was left in the realm of speculation. Maybe a second season could have fixed some of the tonal problems, cleaned things up, and made the story feel more coherent for audiences — or maybe it wouldn’t have, given the whole package. This is a show that wanted to be taken seriously, but it also comes from an era when the technical side of things, from the visual effects to sets and action scenes, just couldn’t always keep up with its ambitions. If it were relying mostly on drama and characters, that might be easier to overlook, but this is fantasy after all.

And if you’ve made it this far because you’re curious to see a less experienced side of Ledger or to find out what the series was actually like in terms of quality, be warned that it’s extremely difficult to find. Roar isn’t available on any streaming service, although some episodes can still be found online. Overall, it wasn’t bad enough to become a more notorious production, but it also wasn’t good enough to have a dedicated fanbase. Sadly, it just got left behind.