So What About SPARTACUS The Series?

I am nearly done watching the final season of this show.  It is unmitigated tripe, IMO, grossly overdone and completely inaccurate, cashing in on the popularity of ROME and 300 by cramming as much graphic violence and nudity into each episode as possible.

And yet . . .

it's just enough of a well-written soap opera that I cannot leave it alone, and here and there it shows moments of true brilliance.

It's not ROME, it's not GLADIATOR. but at the same time, it is somewhat entertaining.

What sayeth the Conscript Fathers of this forum?

In hindsight, it was okay.

Not historically accurate, but there was plot elements that everyone knew in advance- Spartacus had to die, Julius Caesar had to live, so the writers twirked the writing to keep everyone on edge. We also all knew it was ultimately a lost cause.

So I forgive them for the occasional twist.

This being said, the market is rather saturated with these stories now, the survival and rebuilding under incredible odds gig... Its getting old. Spartacus was in the heat of it, just the right time for it. I'm hoping for not a repeat. Seriously, we gotta come up with something else than surviving the romans/zombies/plagues in pretty much the same storyline over and over.

I give a plus to Spartacus for perfecting pornagraphic violence. Negative for man on man sex emphasis.... I got the hint the first make out scene that gays did indeed exist back then too.

The show could of done more to show how Spartacus organized and lead his people. The battle tactics were non existent.... but it was a small new Zealand studio, so I grasp why.

Its so similar to 300, and the 300 sequal bombed. It progressed beyond the theme of sheer survival and inevitable, heroic death.... and was dragged out, and for some reason thought everyone would be amazed at ten minutes of 3-D boobs hanging out. Except for the virgins in the theater, 3-D tits aren't exactly rare, every woman has them, and I was left watching a rather boring sex scene, that was apparently meant to be the highlight of the movie. The first 300 and Spartacus had a comic book feel to them, but its having a hard time transplanting its formulas of sex and violence to the extreme along a further, less than dire storyline where people actually have free will and can choose to retreat. Spartacus was vendetta driven, reacting to Rome every step of the way. The last 300 movie didn't show why Athens or the Persian navy mattered. Heck, if that was my only exposure to history, I would simply ask why not retreat up into the mountains? The mystic falls apart instantly.

If you give your characters too much breathing room, they can become reasonable. If they embracecreason, they get boring. If they reject it, stupid. Its not easy to navigate either, yet keeping everyone in permanent suspense can't work either.

Think of Hogan's Hero's.... The POWs filmed for 5 seasons, the war didn't even go that long! In the Walking Dead, every Zombie should of dehydrated and turned into beef jerky by now. In Spartacus, especially in using a prequel, they timed it well. No reasons to question the storyline in terms of time.

I  am just finishing up the last season.

As entertainment, I give it a 4 out of 5 - as history, about a 2.