Spartacus: Blood and Sand - The Complete First Season

Best show EVER the dvd's come in a nice book style holder. It arrived to me in a few days and i couldn't stop watching it. RIP Andy

If you want a series about Roman history, one can watch HBO's Rome (a very fine TV show). If you want to see a trashy and outrageously entertaining TV show with nonstop gore and nudity (both male and female) as well as graphic sex, Spartacus (very loosely based on the history of Ancient Rome's slave gladiator turned rebel leader) should be the choice.

Supposedly, TV shows are by necessity tamer than movies, yet I haven't seen any movie as consistently graphic about sex and violence as Spartacus. Suffice to say that almost everybody in the large cast of mostly muscular men and gorgeous women, gets naked in the series at some point. Episode 9 in particular - subtly called "Whore" - is a highlight in that regard.

A bit slow to start (I struggled with episode 1, but get hooked after episode 2), this admittedly not for all tastes series, was filmed in New Zealand with a mostly Australian and Kiwi cast. Its striking visual style can be compared with 300 (the gladiator's trainer, the great Peter Mensah, had a small role in that movie). The show is finely led in the titular role by Andy Whitfield (unfortunately he died of cancer after the first season, and was replaced by another actor in the following season). Yet, even if most of the cast is great, the best performance to me is by John Hannah as the devious Batiatus, the owner of the Gladiator's school. Hannah, whose background has been mostly on British comedies, excels here. While he initially seems to lack the toughness one supposes a master of a gladiator's school should have, he is eventually seen as a charming yet also very cruel and cunning man. Also remarkable are the performances of Manu Bennett as the knucklehead (but eventually noble) gladiator Crixus, Viva Bianca as the gorgeous but scheming Ilythia, and Nick Tarabay as Batiatus slimy aide, Ashur.

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