The Antagonists was transformed into a $25 million, four-part (eight-hour) television miniseries Masada, directed by Boris Sagal and produced by George Eckstein, which premiered in April, 1981, with Peter OToole (Silva), Peter Strauss (Eleazar), Anthony Quayle (Gallus), and Barbara Carrera (Sheva).

The production changes Gann's text largely into melodrama and undercuts most of his main points. The story emphasizes action by beginning not at Masada but with the sack of Jerusalem and by changing the Falco character into a vicious tyrant who usurps Silva's power and tortures the Jewish slaves; yet Silva himself becomes unsympathetic, as the television play converts the conflict into one between black and white figures, the godless Roman and the heroic, religious Jewish rebel.

Gann's horror of war, his dissatisfaction with conventional religion, and his belief in men as flawed human beings often at the mercy of fate are all buried by a conventional and often...