Basement X

Lucy. Lawless.

Mr Wallstreet wrote:Lucy. Lawless.

Pure. Awesome.

I really, really hope Andy Whitfield is okay.

Now that my euphoria at seeing Lucy Lawless on television in a real role since Xena has finally subsided I can be a bit more objective about the show.

It is well written and acted. The pacing of the story is done quite well. It doesn't seem to drag too much. The writers did a great job in making Spartacus a deeply, deeply flawed character who wasn't a great warrior to begin with but one who had to be molded and they showed his constant failures at trying to escape and maneuvering himself for highly sought after battles only to be defeated & humiliated.

My two huge problem with the show is that the CGI looks glaringly fake in a fair number of shots. I understand that the budget for this show is considerably smaller than for ROME where the sets were all hand-built, however, many shots do look Green-screened.

My other problem is the constant "300-like" battle sequences. The constant slow-mo shots and extravagant blood splattering really takes you out of the moment. I don't mind having a slow-mo blood splattering shot once or twice in a battle but these shots are done several times during a battle sequence and they are really irritating because just as I'm getting into a fight scene, everything slows and blood is liberally splattered across half the screen. It stops the fast-paced & dangerous feel of the arena.

Those are my two complaints about the show, other than that, all seems to be going well.

Season 1 Finale was amazing. It was everything a finale should be: tense, foreboding, action packed, great acting, dramatic and most of all: satisfying.

The best part about the season 1 finale was that it wasn't a cliffhanger, which 99.9% of shows use (and use terribly) as their plot device for the finale. It's my belief that most shows that employ the use of a cliffhanger ending for a finale do it because they know they've got a weak story on their hands and they realize the only way to keep their shrinking audience from leaving altogether is to throw a hastily put together cliffhanger.

Two scenes stand out the most from the season finale: The initial breakout of the slaves as they broke through the gates into the Villa and began slaughtering the elite; and the scene where Ilythia locked the doors behind her; the flashes of imagery as the slaves killed the Romans and then the blood seeping out from beneath the door was well done.

All in all a great finale: nearly everyone got their comeuppance: Lucretia, Bartiartous, the Senator whose son had ordered Varrow's death. Everyone except Asher (fine villain by the way), Ilythia & the Legatous got away.

Looking forward to the season 2 when they deal with the aftermath of all this.

Except for Spartacus won't be back.

So very sad.

Argh, no more topless Lucy Lawless videos...

They are doing a prequel with Lucy Lawless!

It'll probably fail. It seems the show is being done more on the principal that people want to see more of Lucy Lawless (which is true and not a bad thing) than having a strong story worth telling.

I guess we shall see.

Actually it was being done so they could have something to air when Andy Whitfield underwent his first cancer treatment, before he relapsed and had to leave the show permanatly.

The preview is out, and it looks every bit like the Spartcus we know and love, minus Andy Whitfield. And while that is sad, I am okay with it, and it looks very entertaining.