The violence is a mix of realistic wounds and stylised effects which means it doesn’t feel like you are watching some hideous series of mutilations but just some good old fashioned fun violence. The computer graphics take a bit of getting used to, but after a while I began to admire this way of doing things – it’s something I’ve seen before in ‘Zatoichi’ and it allows for lots of vicious stabbing, slicing and limb-chopping-off. There are graphic eviscerations, dozens of decapitations and more deaths than you can reasonably count. Blood goes literally everywhere, at times the (mostly computer generated) blood blots out the entire screen. It’s ironic that clearly the shows producers have set out to emulate HBO – a network which is famous for including nudity and violence – but they have taken it to such a ridiculous extreme that the small amounts of violence and nudity in say, HBO’s Game of Thrones just seems laughably tame in comparison. Sure there is some sand but it’s overshadowed by the constant, constant nudity and blood.
It should really be called Blood and Nudity as those are the two things you will take away from it. The final episode of the season is called ‘Kill Them All’ and it’s about as subtle as it sounds. It’s the antithesis to the (excellent) Rome HBO series, where the Romans mostly talked and sure that was interesting but sometimes you just want to see fight scenes against giant monster men where limbs get hacked off. Spartacus doesn’t bother with that nonsense – there are no anticlimaxes where violence is threatened and then instead people come to a peaceful understanding, there are no shades of grey or subtlety – it’s like a 14 year old’s power fantasy where you can rest assured that the hero is going to go from strength to strength until he kills everyone. There is character development and emotional moments. Most shows these days are clever, maybe even too clever for their own good – they play with audience expectations, they have subtle plot twists and characters that are not what they first appear. So here are the top 5 reasons I can think of why you should give Spartacus a chance: I’ve only seen the first series – tragically the star of season one isn’t returning for season two as he is is battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – but it is currently ongoing and I will definitely check it out soon. At first glance it appears to be a sort of cross between the film ‘300’ and cut scenes from a terrible 1990s computer game, but in truth there is more to it that meets the eye.
Spartacus: Blood and Sand is a TV series that very nearly passed me by because I am a man of taste and discrimination and Spartacus is basically the opposite of those things. Share the post "5 Reasons to Watch Spartacus: Blood and Sand"