I loved Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Gods of the Arena so much that I immediately got the DVD’s from Amazon. With a new lead actor, how does season 2 look? I heard that the quality has dropped off significantly especially now that Batiatus is gone. Is that true?
It’s definitely a different kind of show - they’re not trapped in the ludus anymore so it’s a little unfocused a lot of the time. I personally like the new guy but he’s still not as good as Andy was in the role. The show, as a whole, is still entertaining in my opinion, and there are a lot of cool things that happen. The season does suffer somewhat from losing such a great scenery-chewer in Batiatus, but some new guys are okay and some others step up to the plate a little more than before.
I’d say to give it a shot, but don’t expect quite the same quality. It wasn’t as good, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good.
I liked it. It does suffer for the loss of Batiatus, but most of the other memorable villains from the last season are still around. And while its a little unfocused in the first half, it gets pretty intense after that.
The new guy is alright. I didn’t think the old guy that played Spartacus was that great in the role. He did a tolerable job playing “generic sulking action hero” and wasn’t bad or anything, but he was kind of generic. New Spartacus is basically the same way. Both seasons are good because of the supporting characters.
There is an unfortunately tendency toward speechifying, i.e. it’s not about the personal freedom of the gladiators or revenge any more, but about freedom for all slaves, indeed all mankind!
It’s kind of degenerated into “Roman Braveheart.”
The best part of the show, IMO, was the gladiatorial combat and everything occurring around the ludus and the games. Now that we’re past that, we’ve come to the part of the story that we already know, i.e. they’ll fight a few battles, even win a few, but ultimately they will lose the war and everyone will die.
Eh? The Ludus, Capua and the arena were pretty large parts of the second season. More so then the bits with Spartacus and his merry men, IIRC.
I’m kind of worried the next season might end up “Spartacus: Braveheart redux”, but I don’t think that was much of a problem in Season 2, beyond one or two “FREEEDOOOM!!!” type speeches a poster mentioned above. (though I doubt their budget really allows much more then one big battle a season, if that, so necessity might keep them from being to similar to the usual freedom fighter movie formula.)
It’s definitely there and in large parts, but those places made up 100% of the first one and a half seasons (not counting the pilot). In the second season, I’d say they only count for maybe 60-65% so it feels like they don’t have an enclosed plot space on this one. A lot of moving around.