Spartacus: Gods of the Arena Episode 1

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Spartacus: Gods of the Arena Episode 1
By Tao Mori
January 22, 2011 - 16:55

Studios: Starz
Writer(s): Steven D. Knight
Starring: Lucy Lawless, John Hannah, Dustin Clare, Marisa Ramirez, Nick Tarabay, Manu Bennett, Peter Mansah, and Jaime Murray
Directed by: Rick Jacobson
Produced by: Paul Grinder, Rick Jacobson, and Charles Knight
Running Time: 60min
Release Date: January 21st, 2011
Rating: M
Distributors: Starz
Genre: Action

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena is a Prequel to the Series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, which can be a little confusing as there is no Spartacus characters in this series. The events in this show take place prior to the introduction of Spartacus’ character in Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Spartacus: Gods of the Arena focus on the life of the Batiatus and his wife Lucretia and their lives within the Roman city of Capua. Batiatus is an ambitious man driven to achieve power and wealth, and tries to achieve this with gladiator battles. Many of the characters from the original series are also in the prequel, such as Crixus, Onemaus, Barca, Solonius, Naevia, and Ashur to name a few. The show portrays the relationships between the characters, and where they started from before Spartacus shows up. One does not have to see Spartacus prior to watching this series, since it is a prequel.

Before I start, I should mention a few things. First off, this show is very violent and essentially soft core pornography, so for those of you who don’t enjoy those things, don’t read any further. Sure there’s politics and relationships like most shows have, but this show likes to push the envelope, on everything. That doesn’t work for everyone, but for those that it does work for then this is likely to be a show that you’ll enjoy.

So I didn’t quite know what to expect when I heard that they were going to make this show. I’ll admit that I was disappointed that we wouldn’t get to see Batiatus and Lucretia anymore after the first season, so it’s a happy surprise that we get to see them again now. Especially Lucretia played by the talented and gorgeous Lucy Lawless, who of course was famous for Xena: The Warrior Princess. John Hannah who plays as Batiatus also does a fantastic job, some of you might remember him as the comedic brother in the Mummy movies. I admit that I haven’t seen him act in anything else, but he definitely shows a whole new dimension to his acting repertoire in the Spartacus series. I believe this show focuses more on the two of them than any of the other characters, but the other characters will clearly play their roles as we saw in this first episode, where a number of the secondary characters such as Onemaus got a lot of screen time.

We expected blood and sex, and we got it, in spades. I saw the first episode of Spartacus: Blood and Sand a month ago, and I remember that there was a lot of sex and violence in their first episode, okay well in every episode. I don’t know if one could say that there is more or less violence and sex. I definitely didn’t think we’d see Lucretia have a lesbian scene with her friend Gaia, but then hey that’s the kind of show that this is. Some people, and perhaps myself included may feel that the over gratuitousness of the amount of sex and violence that’s in the show is overdone and not necessary, but I figure the majority of the audience for this show is male so pandering to the audience is a good technique to ensure that you capture the attention of your audience. There’s rarely five minutes that pass by without some blood being spilt or some breasts being exposed, in some cases you get both at the same time. There’s something to be said about this weird connection that the show is trying to portray with sex and violence, and I think it’s more than just a critique of Roman times. Though I do feel that this show portrays the depravity of the human spirit quite well, and how far are we willing to sink to be successful. The sex and violence is only the icing on the cake when examining human depravity as the passions of Batiatus and his wife can often be a lot more sinister.

Batiatus’s character showed such depravity in the last season where we saw what he was willing to do be top dog. This season I think is trying to set up the conditions under which Batiatus became the man that he is. That was the impression that I received. In this episode, Batiatus is the small man on the totem pole, where governors will not talk to him and he’s not able to fully participate in the games. This season, I suspect is to set up what Batiatus and his gladiators will accomplish and how Crixus (most likely) will bring House Batiatus to fame and glory. The opponents that Batiatus will have to overcome were established in this show, which were Tullius and Vettius, both of which we aren’t supposed to like. At least I don’t. And somehow Batiatus will get his revenge, I suspect violence. Hopefully the pointy stabby kind of violence.

I was surprised to see Onemaus had a wife, I had thought that his wife was from a life before being a slave, but clearly that’s not the case. For those of you familiar with the previous season then you know something is going to happen to her. Crixus is treated by crap by everyone, except Ashur interestingly since Crixus treated Ashur like crap in the previous season. So clearly those two have some kind of confrontation that explodes and causes the two of them to hate each other. Also Barca treats Crixus like crap too, which is rather funny considering how buddy buddy those two get. And of course Barca still likes men, though a fellow gladiator and not one of the slave boys. Again for those of you familiar with the previous season you know something is going to happen there too. A lot of foreshadowing for those of us with good memories of what happened in the previous season. Again if you haven’t seen the previous scene, then you miss the foreshadowing, but that’s good, you can be genuinely surprised when things happen.

A few things to say about the cinematography. I wonder if did as much green screens for this season as they had in the previous season. Considering that the first fight took place in that small wooden coliseum they might’ve built that set for the show rather than have to use a green screen. Either way it wasn’t glaringly obvious to me if it was green screened or not. The blood was a bit more realistic, still probably more blood then there should’ve been, but then there wasn’t that weird splash effect that they made gratuitous use of in the previous season. Lots of gore, especially when that guy got his head pushed onto the sword. Even I winced at that.
A few final notes to say about this show. If you don’t like things that are gratuitous, you won’t like this show. This is the kind of show you have to go in knowing that it’s going to be over the top and you have to enjoy it for what it is. This isn’t the kind of show that’s going to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, or make you feel like you’ve really grown as a person. I think the warning for this show is 14+, but it’s probably 18+ so that’s something to keep in mind. Strange how breasts are seen are more provocative than a guy getting his throat cut open. That seems backwards to me. Who would’ve thought that Lucy Lawless would ever do a nude scene, I know I didn’t, it still flabbergasts me. I remember watching Xena: The Warrior Princess as a teenager and always hoping for that topless scene, and behold ten years later…

Rating: 8/10

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