Review by Terry Richard
Rating:
“Spartacus: Blood and Sand” continues cable television’s dominance in quality programming outshining all network shows by a landslide. The series debut on Starz TV in January, 2010 and before the series was even broadcast the station ordered two full seasons worth of episodes which shows Starz’s dedication to broadcasting high quality progamming. “Sparatacus: Blood and Sand” is a historical weekly drama, made along the same lines as “Rome” and “The Tudors”, but with more graphic violence, sex, and language. The series is about a Roman gladiator named Spartacus who is captured and becomes a slave in a gladiator school headed by Batiatus in Capua. There, Spartacus must fight for his freedom, and he ultimately becomes the head of all slaves as others look up to him for his determination and willpower. The first season features 13 episodes all produced where money was no option. The sets, costumes, and location shooting are the best for any series produced for TV and there were times that I had to remind myself that I was not watching a movie, but a mere TV show. Andy Whitfield, an Australian actor, is mesmerizing as Spartacus, and his character is at times often bold, intense, heart-warming, and unapologetic. Lucy Lawless has a supporting role as the wife of Batiatus who is having an affair with sexy gladiator Crixus, played to perfection by Manu Bennett. The one asset the series has is the amount of male flesh that viewers can witness week after week. Obviously great care went into the casting of actors that were buffed and well-built and if your a straight woman or a gay guy you will not be disappointed in the amount of male testosterone that is shown. Full male frontal nudity, mainly by Manu Bennett, is shown as well, which is why the series has a TV-MA rating. A wonderful series, made in the manner of a weekly serial, with excellent writing and acting is what makes “Spartacus” a soon to be Emmy winning show.

This 4 disc set arrives in stores September 21, 2010 and comes with a slew of bonuses including the featurettes “Gladiator Camp”, “History Rewritten”, “The Hole”, “Make-Up Effects”, and more; audio commentaries, episodes with enhanced digital effects, trailers, bloopers, and behind-the-scenes footage. For the blu-ray release only there will be four episodes selected that will be extended cuts including scenes that were too graphic to be shown on cable television.

Review by Sky
Rating:
If you thought HBO’s depiction of ancient Rome was graphic and brutal, wait till you see Spartacus: Blood and Sand! Take the excellent scripting work that went into Rome, combine it with the shocking sex and violence of Caligula, mix in a little of the over the top blood spatter of 300 and your expectations will be very well set for Spartacus.

I remember when HBO’s Deadwood first came out that some of the public reaction was astonished and skeptic of the portrayal of such a violent and profanity filled Wild Wild West. After decades of Westerns led by squeaky clean John Wayne characters, I’m not surprised. Similar to what Deadwood was going for with the Western, Spratacus leaves nothing for the imagination during its time period. But what makes Spartacus such a classy show is that there’s nothing gratuitous. It’s all intended to be a very real depiction of how day to day life went in the hierarchies of Rome circa 70 BC. Love, battle, adultery, orgy, torture, rape, murder…it’s all there in all its glory…and I mean ALL its glory.

The events of Spartacus take place about 20 years prior to those depicted in the HBO Rome series, and it initially focuses on the historical figure Spartacus’ enslavement and rise as a gladiator. As of this writing 7 of 13 scheduled first season episodes have aired, and I was lucky enough to catch them all this past weekend over two days in a Spartucus marathon that Starz was running on one of its alternate channels. After only seven episodes, I can say that I have found one of the best new shows–if not the best–on TV. (Edit 4/19/2010: The season finale this past weekend was phenominal.)

Spartucus is played masterfully by little known Andy Whitfield. And the rest of the cast is pretty much just as little known as Whitfield. Sure, there’s Lucy Lawless and John Hannah, but they are / were hardly A-listers. But the entire cast so far give nothing but A-list performances. (Edit 7/8/2010: Whitfield was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma in early 2010; he has apparently made a full recovery and will begin filming the 2nd season perhaps as early as fall 2010. Great news. Due to the delay in filming of season 2, a short 6-episode prequel to season 1 will air this fall starring Lawless and Hannah.)

My recommendation is to start catching up on this great new show now on Starz On Demand. If you don’t get Starz, this series makes the subscription worth it all by itself. But the benefit to waiting for the Blu Ray release is two-fold: The series is certainly worthy of collection so far and on Blu Ray you don’t have to wait for the episodes to air on a weekly basis! However you do it, be sure to check out Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

Review by trashcanman
Rating:
I recall watching the first episode of “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” and literally laughing at the clumsy audacity of it. The show opened with a disclaimer ensuring us that all of the violence and “extreme sensuality” to follow was only so that they could portray a historically accurate Roman society. Sure. Right. No way can you have a true-to-life portrayal without every character screaming words we only refer to by their first initial in every sentence and every slave in the background being a gorgeous naked woman. And did you know that all the blood in gladiator matches was CG back then? Gotta love that historical authenticity. So only from a comedic standpoint did the show’s pilot impress me. But hey, I like cursing and nude ladies and brutal violence as much as the next guy so I figured I’d keep on watching in spite of the moronic presentation and the obvious attempt to cash in on the popularity of the film “300″ and it’s uniquely-stylized version of sword-and-sandals history. Then a funny thing happened. The show got good. Real good. The second half of Spartacus was among the most compelling and unrelentingly bleak runs of television I’ve ever watched. It was almost HBO quality. And so it came to pass that Spartacus fought it’s way into my heart and earned its place alongside Sci-Fi’s Caprica as a show I could not wait to get home from work and watch. No other new show earned that kind of cred this year.

So we all know the story of the slave revolt led by the title character by now. Stanley Kubrick’s classic epic saw to that. What’s left to tell? Is this a remake? Well, first and foremost, the 300 style does this show some good in spite of it’s contrived nature. Shots of the blood flying or blotting out the entire background as the character makes a kill and slows to a stop are pretty damn cool. The violence is plentiful and brutal as can be. The sex and nudity lets up some after the initial trying-too-hard phase, but stays present enough to keep viewers who are primarily impressed by such things interested, and the cursing becomes less comedically overdone. The blood and T&A cease to be the main draw of the series fairly early, actually. What makes Spartacus tick is not the simplistic tale of a betrayed soldier-turned-slave-turned-gladiator-turned-revolutionary; it’s the fact that the show focuses not on the slave but on the master. The villains are developed enough with their own motives that you almost begin to root for them. John Hannah as Batiatus and Lucy Lawless as his wife, Lucretia, are marvelous to watch. Batiatus’s mad ravings and ambitious schemes to ride Spartacus’ success in the arena to political power drive the plot to great heights of tragedy and betrayal while Lucretia’s sexual intrigue shows that women too held an element of power in Roman society. The supporting cast is even stronger. Many of the various slaves and gladiators have backstories and motives of their own that make the tapestry of the plot increasingly complex and intriguing as the story moves on. Many of them will meet with bad ends, and you will likely feel each loss. There really are no good or bad characters here. Every one is a bastard of one kind or another. But they are all enjoyable nonetheless.

The best thing I can really say about the show is that is almost constantly surprised me once it got rolling. I quite literally never knew what was going to happen next in spite of my familiarity with the classic tale. The choice to tear the story as we knew it down and rebuild it around a completely different framework was risky and bold, and it paid off. The Roman high society aspect turned out to produce some really incredible drama and plot twists to keep the story fresh while still feeding us all of the primal machismo of gladatorial combat and brotherhood. I’m really glad this is coming back for a second season. The first season ends with a massive bang that quite literally rips asunder everything that had been built over the first 12 hours. I kind of love that. If nothing else, Spartacus is a show that revels in taking bold risks. Gotta respect it. It’s also worth pointing out that Sam Raimi has a producing credit. Didn’t think he had it in him since light-hearted fantasy seems to be more his taste in television, but add another notch to his cool column.

Okay, so you like seeing the unclothed body parts of well-endowed males and/or females. You like limbs getting hacked off and people beaten to death. You want lots of intrigue and plot twists and romantic longing juxtaposed with sexual conquest. You want a hero who is both unconquerable and routinely humbled. You like to make gay gladiator jokes and hear a supposed proper gentleman’s exclamations regarding Roman deity’s genitalia. Well, you’ve come to the right place, my friend. And not only that, but even if these things are more of a take-it-or-leave-it kind of deal for you, Spartacus: Blood and Sand may still end up being a show you can’t take your eyes off of if you give it a chance. It may not be an authentic representation of ancient Roman culture, but it is a compelling trip into a stylized version of it that pays a lot of dividends and is not afraid to hurt the audience’s feelings or slit a major character’s throat for it’s own amusement or just to make the revenge that much sweeter in the end. And that willingness to constantly change the landscape of the show even after building upon that landscape is what makes it such a joy to watch in the end, all superficial crassness aside. There’s simply nothing else like it on television.