Tag Archives: Netflix

Spartacus: Blood and Sand Season 1

Spartacus: Blood and Sand Season 1

My update frequency has not been quite up to my goal as of late, however I think I’ve at least come reasonably close.  Much of my time these last few days has been given over to two things:  Listening to albums for potential purchase from Google Music’s current sale (currently listening to Lily Allen‘s It’s Not Me, It’s You) and watching season 1 of Spartacus:  Blood and Sand, which has apparently been renamed Spartcacus:  Vengeance.

I’ve been meaning to watch Spartacus for some time now, but never got around to it.  Netflix has had it available for streaming for a while, and it’s been sitting in my queue.  What prompted me to finally sit down and watch it was discovering that it was set to expire at the end of the month.  As much as I hate when Netflix pulls movies and shows from their streaming catalog, sometimes I feel like I’d never watch anything that wasn’t about to expire.  I should correct that.  Maybe next week though, because there are several other things I have to watch before they expire.  :\  Shenanigans, I tell you!

Spartacus has been pretty great, but its not without its faults.  The CGI is sometimes laughably silly.  Often times wounds shake a bit and move around on the body and occasionally it looks like its a vinyl sticker with poor adhesive.  The dialog of the Medicus character is just plain awful, sometimes bearing no relation to what people speaking directly to him are saying.  And the phrases “I give no shit!” and “Jupiter’s cock!” flow freely from the lips of every character as if they were purging themselves of some foul thing eaten by mistake.

Despite all this it really is a pretty good show.  If you like action, with a healthy dose of 300 style gore, you’ll definitely find it here.  (Side note:  Lily Allen’s Go Back to the Start is rocking my socks right now.)  The story is good, as is the overall characterization.  Almost no one is completely good or evil, and you’ll find yourself cheering for one character’s machinations coming to fruition in one scene while hoping for their violent death in another.  The first few episodes were a bit frustrating as Spartacus went from elite soldier to bumbling buffoon who’s apparently never held a sword for no reason other than it served as a convenient plot device, but once that hurdle is cleared, the show really takes off.  There are a lot of edge of your seat moments both in and out of the arena.   They really highlight the decadent nature of ancient Rome, though I’m sure stylistic liberties were taken to a degree.  It almost feels like 300: The TV Series!, which I suppose is intentional, and not really a bad thing.

I’m looking forward to the new season starting up, but before that, I’ve got to get my hands on the prequel miniseries they did due to Andy Whitfield‘s unfortunately failing health.  I can’t wait to see where the story plays out from here and quite frankly, I can’t wait to see more of Lucy Lawless‘ breasts.

Did I not mention that part?  There’s a lot of exposed flesh of all kinds in this show.  Good times!