Review: SPARTACUS: GODS OF THE ARENA 1.1 Past Transgressions

I wasn't lucky enough to catch Spartacus: Blood & Sand first time around but I have heard pretty amazing things about it, I don't know if you caught my post on the most anticipated TV shows of 2012 (early) or not but just in case you didn't....I mentioned a show starting on Starz January 27th called Spartacus: Vengeance.  The show is the official sequel to Blood & Sand which I mentioned above but, that show had a prequel which is this.  Not seeing any of them before I figured that this would be a pretty good place to start.

From what I have seen in any Spartacus related TV show or movie it's pretty much a show that will tailor more to the needs of men as apposed to women, that doesn't mean that it's not for women of course, there is plenty story behind everything and the women in ancient Rome have their own coffee like mornings.  But you do have to say this is aimed at men, the violence, blood shed and of course all the sex, even a lesbian scene guys!  In fact these are probably the bits I enjoyed most, the brutal blood shedding fight scenes and those other ones I have just mentioned.

Gods of the Arena takes us right back to the beginning of what was a massive hit on Starz, the "rock star" gladiator in this show is Gannicus (Dustin Clare, Colin Farrel lookalike) a Gladiator who is cocky and arrogant, only in the job (slavery) for one thing, women.  Batiatus the head of the Gladiator school is leading Gannicus' rise to the top, he however is not liked by the upper class of the Roman command and spends his days trying to convince the local Magistrate that his fighter deserves what would be then a prime time slot, and a shot at one of the top Gladiators.

I mentioned all of the sex scenes already and probably made it sound bad, it's really not, like any TV show or movie set in this time period Gods of the Arena is just showing us how open things where back then, quite how they know it's ture I don't know but hey I enjoyed it and so have many others from what I have read. 

For me though, that is not what makes this show, and like the movie Gladiator I enjoyed the showdown with the Gladiator's more than anything else   I really enjoyed this show, yeah it was quite hammy in parts but it is a cable TV show so, that should be expected.  From what I had heard of the Spartacus series as a whole I pretty much got what I was expecting during this opening 45 minutes.

I of course can not relate this to Blood & Sand as you already know I didn't watch it, I have read a lot about the characters in this series, that will probably spoil the later one for me as I can pretty much figure who won't be in Blood & Sand, I do of course know of the tragic story of Andy Whitfield who was the star of the original season but, as far as the others go I don't know them or their backing story.  Am I starting at a good place here? I'm not sure.

Wherever I start I still fully intend on watching the new season which starts on Starz later this month, I will also keep up with the repeats of this one on Sky 2.  Be sure to come back and check out the reviews of the latest season, subscribe to the site via RSS, Twitter or Facebook, on any of those you will get all the latest updates on whatever we are talking about.