Four Torches (Out of Five)

Warning: This review contains minor spoilers for the “Missio” episode of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena.

I’d gotten so accustomed to the insane, boundary-pushing shenanigans of the Spartacus series last year that I forgot there’s simply no other show on television like it. Period. Sure, shows have attempted to push the boundaries of violence and sex before, but have you ever seen things like decapitations, eviscerations, dismemberment, alongside open gay sex, public masturbation, and orgies handled so … well, nonchalantly?

Spartacus continues to be a show like no other, and I have no doubt that in the coming years we’ll see shows attempt to emulate it, but fall short, as mimics often do.

Anyway, onto this particular episode. While the first episode was understandably heavy on exposition — a season premiere requires a fair amount of world-building, after all — we’re back on track with an action-packed episode. After the sick beat-down Batiatus received last week, he was itching to get his revenge on his two assailants. After this episode, one is down with one to go.

An intriguing new character arrived this season: Gaia, an old friend (and a very close one at that) of Lucretia’s. In the first episode she seemed more like an older version of a naughty schoolgirl, but after the ingeniously crafted character of Ilithyia last season, I had my eye on her, and sure enough, she revealed herself to be  a web of ice-cold calculations under the beguiling smile and flighty facade.

The plot centers around a scheme by Batiatus to convince, through whatever means necessary, a wealthy patron named Varras to showcase Batiatus’ gladiators in his upcoming games, rather than his rivals’. Part of this scheme includes sending a gang of his new recruits — Ashur, the villainous scoundrel from Season 1 among them — to take out his rival, while Lucretia and Gaia are dispatched to seduce Varras into retreating from the sun to Batiatus’ villa. Lucretia, far from the willful femme fatale she becomes later on, is a bundle of nerves, while Gaia tells her to relax, and takes the lead.

Prequels are hard to pull off, because we know how the story ends, but one thing Spartacus is doing absolutely right is showing us virtually every character in a new way. Sure, we know what becomes of them, but this way, we enjoy the ride a whole lot more.

Once they succeed in luring Varras to the villa, the three of them work him over until he’s ready to choose one of Batiatus’ gladiators. The natural choice is Gannicus, the current champion, who impresses Varras with his defeat over Crixus, who will one day be the champion himself, of course.

And in a twist that only the writers of Spartacus would come up with, Batiatus then brings Gannicus to the chambers, clad only in a white tunic, and casually offers Varras an opportunity to have sex with him. Varras is certainly titillated, but drunk and under the influence of opium, would rather just watch Gannicus have sex with a nearby slave, who happens to be the wife of Gannicus’ friend.

Gaia, mind you, is interested in becoming Varras’ wife, social climber that she is, and yet she’s not put off in the slightest as Varras toys with having sex with a man, finally contenting himself to masturbate in everyone’s presence as Gannicus fornicates before his eyes.

To say this show is unique doesn’t even begin to do it justice. I’m pretty sure I never saw a scene like that in Two and a Half Men.

If there is a flaw in the series, it’s one of sad origin: without Andy Whitfield to anchor the show as a lead character, there’s a slightly meandering sense to the story, as though this is all subplot and we’ll eventually get to the A-story. Sure, Batiatus and Lucretia are delicious villains, but there’s a reason villains are seldom the protagonists, and while Gannicus is wonderfully cocky and full of hubris, the show doesn’t quite rest on his shoulders.

That having been said, I eagerly await the next installment.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Please send an email to thetorchonlineoracle@gmail.com and be sure and include your city and state and/or country.

Q: I’m curious how Jane Badler, who played Diana in the original V, came to be involved with the V remake. It seems like such obvious stunt casting (although she’s terrific so far). Was it planned from the start — or did they bring her in once the ratings started to flag? — MAGPIE, Toronto, Canada

The Oracle Speaks:

Neither, according to V producer and showrunner Scott Rosenbaum. Despite some reports to the contrary, Rosenbaum tells TheTorchOnline.com that the new character of “Diana,” Anna’s mother, was conceived without Jane Badler in mind.

Mother, daughter, grandmother

“I had this idea at the end of last season about what season two was going to be, and I thought it would be interesting to do a little back-story of the Visitors,” Rosenbaum says. “I started with Anna, and I thought, ‘Does she have a mother?’ I spent some time figuring out who that mother was, why there was conflict between them.”

At this point, Rosenbaum says he still hadn’t even considered Jane Balder for the role, but that he got a message that she was in town and wanted to meet him. “But we hadn’t even started casting yet,” Rosenbaum says. “She didn’t even know there was a role.”

It wasn’t until they were actually chatting that Rosenbaum put two and two together. “She was talking about her kid in Australia, and I was completely zoning out, thinking, ‘She could be Diana!’”

Rosenbaum says Badler auditioned for the role — something Badler confirms.

“There were sixty or seventy very well-known actors who auditioned for that role,” he says. “I was shocked by the names that came in. I didn’t think we’d have such a pool of recognizable actors — some who’d had B+ TV roles. But I chose [Jane] because she was the best. I didn’t do it at all because she was from the original.”

Rosenbaum acknowledges that it turned out to be something of a publicity coup for the show.  “But I didn’t do it because I thought the fans would be excited,” he says. “The thing is, they could’ve reacted the opposite way. You have to just pick the best person.”

Rosenbaum’s story strains credibility a bit — I’m assuming the character wasn’t really named “Diana” from the beginning — but he seemed sincere to me. And he did take over as showrunner partway through the first season, so it’s possible that previous producers were working on casting Jane as well, and Rosenbaum simply wasn’t aware.

Incidentally, why did Rosenbaum decide to make the next series story-arc about three women — Anna, Diana, and Lisa — in conflict?

“I felt like there needed to be more pressure on Anna,” Rosenbaum says. “And there’s an expression I heard years ago that stuck with me. The reason why grandparents and grandchildren get along is because they share a common enemy: the mother! That’s all you need to know about this three-women dynamic.”

Q: I agree with your opinion that prequels are really, really hard to pull off (e.g. Star Wars). So is Spartacus going to do it? How? — E.J., Lake Hope, OH

The Oracle Speaks:

I’ve only seen the first episode, so I can’t say how they’ll do it. But the producers have talked about what they learned from the first season, acknowledging that their storytelling grew stronger as the season went on. Maybe it’s just spin, but what they say is so in sync with how I perceived the first season to be that they’ve convinced me that they really do know what they’re doing.

“From the first episode on, we ratchet up the tension and the stakes,” writer-producer Steven DeKnight tells us in an exclusive interview. “There’s a lot of things that happen in the prequel that inform season one. You don’t have to have seen season one to know what happens, but in true Spartacus fashion, a lot of characters won’t see in the end of the prequel.”

What does DeKnight think of the finished product?

“Honestly, it turned out better than I had ever hoped,” he says. “We really got a chance to go back and flesh out so many of the characters and tell a story that I don’t think we ever would’ve ever been able to tell otherwise.”

In fact, DeKnight says that the existence of the first season, the events of which still lie ahead in the time-line, gave them the major theme of the prequel.

“Your actions will decide your fate,” he says. “It’s something that Batiatus’s father will warn him of, and we draw directly between what happens in the prequel and where it leads him in season one.”

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Four Torches (Out of Five)

Warning: This review contains minor spoilers for the “Past Transgressions” episode of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena.

The wait is over! Spartacus is back, for the six-episode “prequel” series Spartacus: Gods of the Arena at least.

I’ll offer my bias up front: in general, I think prequels are a terrible idea, or at least they’re very difficult to pull off. We all know how the story ends and we all think we know how we get there, so the trick is to take us to that ending, but in such a way that we’re completely surprised — so much so that we have a whole new insight on the the established events that follow, giving them a completely new relevance.

Needless to say, George Lucas didn’t do this at all in his Star Wars prequels. He showed us exactly what we expected, nothing more (and maybe even less).

Will the producers of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena pull their prequel off?

I’ve seen the first episode and … so far, so good.

The episode begins with a montage of some of the most pivotal (and literally, the most violent) moments in Spartacus: Blood and Sand, culminating with the death of Batiatus. In other words, his life is passing before his eyes.

But in his dying breath, we see a glint in his eyes, and we’re transported back five years into the past.

We soon join many of our favorite characters: Lucretia, Batiatus, Doctore, Crixus, Ashur, Barca, Naevia. But they’re definitely not the characters we remember. They obviously haven’t become those characters yet — Lucretia, for example, says, “I’ve never been with any man but my husband” and that the idea of sex with a gladiator is “disgusting.”

Expect them all to change a lot in the weeks and months ahead. But Batiatus, of course, is the one character who won’t change at all: he’s his exact same arrogant, insecure, morally cowardly self.

We also meet some new characters, including Gaia (Dexter’s Jaime Murray), rising gladiator-star Gannicus (Dustin Clare), who is the character the action of the prequel mostly centers around.

One thing seems different from Blood and Sand: it’s even more graphic.

I know: it doesn’t seem like that’s possible, does it? But it is. Of course, the graphic nature doesn’t just have to do with violence (and sex). There’s a scene in a Roman toilet that I can only assume is fact-based, and it’s both shocking and really interesting. And the melding of sex and violence here is even more pronounced than before.

My only real problem with this first episode is that it gets a little talky at times: there’s a lot of exposition. The episode also doesn’t do the best job of setting up the overall conflict of the series — things are hinted at, but nothing is quite clear.

Then again, as with Blood and Sand, it could be that they’re taking a more subtle approach.

Yes, I said it: I think the writers of Spartacus are “subtle.” Okay, maybe not with the sex and violence, and the themes are larger than life too, almost Shakespearean. But the other storytelling elements are always surprisingly character-driven and nicely nuanced.

The point is, Spartacus is back, and at least based on my viewing of the first episode, if you liked the last season, I’m almost certain you’ll like this prequel season too.

Five years.

That’s the amount of time that the new six-episode Spartacus “prequel” goes back, in order to tell the story of what happened before Spartacus arrived at Batiatus’ ludus.

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena premieres this Friday at 10 PM on Starz.

At a presentation last week at the Television Critics Association conference in Pasadena, the producers and stars of the show talked about the production, which was originally planned to give star Andy Whitfield time for cancer treatments (he did not respond well, and the part was subsequently recast for season two).

“We basically cut out all the boring parts,” executive producer Steven DeKnight said, describing how they were able to tell a Spartacus-worthy story in a mere six episodes. “We hit the ground running.”

DeKnight admited that the first season of the show was rocky at first, but that those mistakes helped them this time around.

“When we started off [in season one], you know, we went straight to thirteen episodes with no pilot,” he said. “So it was a lot of research and development on the job … And if you look at the first episode of season one and the last episode of season one, you see how far we have come. It was a little bit of everything and the kitchen sink at first. It was just a learning process. And after a couple of episodes, we really found what worked and what didn’t.

“Right when Spartacus really gelled in season one, we were able to start right there from the first episode of the prequel,” DeKnight said.

The prequel tells the story of a new gladiator, Gannicus, played by Dustin Clare, and the way in which he helps Batiatus first make a name for himself.

Many characters from the first season appear, including Batiatus’ wife Lucretia (Lucy Lawless), Barca, Ashur, Naevia, and Peter Mensah’s Oenomaus, but in surprisingly different versions of themselves (Oenomaus is not yet Doctore, for example).

The prequel tells the story of how they came to be the people they are in the first season, for good or ill.

Lawless (left) and Jamie Murray as Gaia

Asked if she liked playing a character younger than herself, Lucy Lawless said, “I love it!”

Whether it was difficult, Lawless said, “It was a rare pleasure actually. That never happens, where you get to go back and fill in blanks and actually find out more about your own character. It was a huge thrill for me. And you get to see our characters when they are in the honeymoon phase of their lives.”

“That was the honeymoon?” John Hannah, who plays Batiatus, deadpanned.

“That was it,” Lawless said. “That was all you get. Hey, come on. It was all right for you.”

Lawless also said that the actors’ performances were “youthened” in editing. “They fix us in post,” she said. “That’s not a lie. But my character certainly was a bit more sort of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed before her rotten college mate came back and taught her all these bad tricks, played by Jaime Murray who plays Gaia. But my character did not abuse the servants in the beginning, and she was devoted to her husband.”

DeKnight promised that the special effects are even better than season one.

“There’s some deaths that are so incredible, you just have to rewind to watch again because you can’t believe what you just saw,” he said. “[Co-creator] Rob [Tapert] and his team have definitely managed to up the ante. And I was stunned by how great some of this stuff looks.”

Did the events of the prequel change any of the events of season two, which was basically written when Whitfield was diagnosed with cancer?

“It was a very unfortunate circumstance,” DeKnight said. “But story-wise, the story [of the second season still is] basically what the story was.”

The actors and producers also responded to questions about whether the charactes of Batiatus and Lucretia will return in season two.

“It was just a flesh wound,” quipped Lawless of Batiatus’ obviously fatal injuries, prompting John Hannah to joke, “I believe that Batiatus does actually have a twin brother who we get to meet later on.”

Lawless, meanwhile, confirmed that she will return in season two

The six-episode prequel series Spartacus: Gods of the Arena begins this Friday at 10 PM on Starz.

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Starz has released some new photos from Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, their six-episode “prequel” series which premieres January 21st.

• The “best” characters in Harry Potter (minus Harry, of course). I don’t agree, but it’s a thoughtful list.

• Are the Harry Potter books “classics”? Part of me thinks, “Uh, duh!” But then again, we can’t know if they’ll become classics — plenty of initially wildly popular books had little or no “life” beyond their hey-day. Example: does anyone really think that the Twilight books will be remembered in five years, much less 50?

• Interviews with the kids from Dawn Treader. For more than a year, as the studios decided whether to proceed with more Narnia movies, they thought they might be out of a job.

• The producers of A Game of Thrones are accused of destroying a sensitive beach in Malta.

• The supposed Shannara movies based on Terry Brooks‘ books? They’re off again.

• Photos from Spartacus: Gods of the Arena.

• The trailer for Lord of the Rings: War of the North, an upcoming Diablo-like action RPG.

• A 3D shark movie is coming! But wait, didn’t they already do that with Jaws 3D? Why, yes they did — and it was a terrible movie.

• Lord of the Rings Online is getting a third expansion pack … for November 2011 (!!).

• I’m sorry, but Carrie Underwood’s “theme from Dawn Treader” sounds like a parody of big budget movie themes: “We can be the kings and queens of anything if we believe…”? WTF?

• Joss Whedon’s response to the news of the Buffy movie reboot is pretty much spot-on: bitter, resigned, funny, and angry:

• Really, really graphic violence … in claymation. Geeeez, is nothing sacred?!

• Superman rumors: I seriously couldn’t care less about this project, but I think Matthew Goode is a good choice for the Man of Steel.

• It’s Mark Wahlberg, not Nathan Fillion for the lead in Uncharted: Drake’s Forture … and suddenly I couldn’t care less once again. How many movies is Wahlberg going to ruin?

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The trailer for the upcoming six-part Spartacus prequel, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, is out, and it looks incredible, and I can’t wait to see it. But does anyone else think that it looks a little … familiar? I do hope the story itself is a good one.

• Comedy Central’s Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire didn’t quite do it, but maybe the upcoming movie Your Highness will bring slapstick comedy back to fantasy. It’s due April 2011.

• Some great pics from ComicCon New York (right).

• A movie version of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune video game is on the way, directed by David O. Russel (Three Kings). At this point, I should probably remind you that the track record of turning video games into successful movies is about 0 out of 500.

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows won’t be 3D after all. (Thank God. Maybe this stupid 3D fad is coming to an end.)
  

• Yoda was the movie’s first animatronic puppet. But originally, the plan was for it to be a trained monkey in a mask and suit.

• DC Comics lowered their prices — now Marvel is following suit. Price war!

• Hey, Doctor Who is coming to the U.S. to film!

• Speaking of HP, here’s proof that J.K. Rowling really did have the plot all mapped out: here are some of her plot notes for Order of the Phoenix (right).

• The first pics from Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. I miss Andy Whitfield, but I love it already.

• Daniel Radcliffe, from boy to man, in pictures!

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• Remember back in June, we showed you pictures of the new Shire that was being built for The Hobbit, even as we didn’t know when it would be filmed? Some folks questioned if that wasn’t just the old LotR set. Now we can say, absolutely it was not – because the Shire from LotR is now home to sheep, who have taken their field back, hobbit holes and all. I have no idea why the pictures make me laugh, but they do.

• Now that the Vampire Academy books have been optioned for a movie, fans are trying to come up with dream casting for the roles. Fantasy casting is always fun, and some of the suggestions here can actually act, like Henry Cavill from The Tudors. I’m less impressed with the choices of Jessica Lowndes of 90210 or Ben Barnes from Price Caspian. Who are your dream actors for the roles?

• Speaking of fantasy casting (at least my fantasy), Spartacus: Gods of the Arena has cast Aussie actor Josef Brown to play Auctus, a gladiator love interest for Barca, the Beast of Carthage. This will be a fun dynamic, a relationship of equals.

• There’s not a lot genre television on the fall broadcast networks’ schedules, and the two obvious choices, The Cape and No Ordinary Family, are both adamant that they’re not genre shows. Even genre queen Summer Glau is determined for you to know that her show The Cape is not supernatural, futuristic, and nobody has powers. And Michael Chiklis says even if people on his show have powers, they’re doing something new, not a mere superhero show. Man, is the stench of Heroes hanging around television or what?

• There’s a new picture of Professor Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks available, although I’m a little unclear if it’s just a collectibles shot or something from Deathly Hallows.

• Indulge me for a minute. I’m a cartoon nut, I can’t help myself, and one of the funniest these days is Phineas & Ferb on Disney XD. They have an episode coming up August 16^th that has the boys going to the Tri-State Area sci-fi/comic book convention to meet a special effects guru voiced by Kevin Smith. And the B-plot has Dr. Doofenshmirtz holding a TV exec hostage while pitching a monster television show, with the TV exec being voiced by Seth MacFarlane. Trust me, it will work, and has monsters and potions. Previews at the link. Any kids’ cartoon that can work “long chain hydrocarbons” into a Bollywood musical number is smarter than it gets credit for.

• SyFy has a pilot with the unfortunate name of Three Inches about a guy who develops the nearly useless superpower of being able to move any object 3” to the side with his mind. They’ve named a star in Canadian Noah Reid.

• I’m not really sure what genre to drop Scott Pilgrim vs. the World into, I just know I’m oddly excited to go see it. But the marketing has been brilliant, and keeps getting more meta. Now the action star played by Chris Evans in the film has new movie posters for his fictional movies with ridiculous titles like Action Doctor or Thrilled To Be Here.

“We had all these juicy nuggets from Season 1 that we never got to explore,” says Steven DeKnight, the showrunner and executive producer of Starz’ Spartacus series, explaining the motivation behind the six-episode “prequel” series, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, coming in 2011.

“Of course, the big thing was the chance to have John Hannah [who played Batiatus] and Lucy Lawless [who played Lucretia] together again for six episodes,” DeKnight adds. “I adored working with John, loved writing for him. It was a thrill to do that again.”

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena tells the story of Batiatus’ ludus prior to Spartacus’ arrival.

“We allude to a lot of things in Season 1 that happened in the past but you never see,” DeKnight says. “For instance, we talk about how Ashur was crippled in the arena. We talk about Crixus. And there’s a lot between Thelonius and Batiatus. In Season 1, we just picked up where they hate each other, but where did that come from? You’ve got the whole affair going on between Crixus and Lucretia. How did that come about?”

At one point in the show’s first season, the audience learned that Doctore [played by Peter Mensah] had a wife, but it was only a couple of lines.

“We really wanted to explore that,” DeKnight says. “What happened? You get the feeling that something bad happened but we never say what it was. … We were all very excited to get back in that gladiator world and explore some of these stories, and really bring some of those characters to the forefront that due to time constraints and the weight of the story, we weren’t able to do in Season 1.”

Had star Andy Whitfield not been diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, the prequel probably wouldn’t have existed at all - - although the producers had been considering telling some of these stories in graphic novel form.

“The first thing that happened after all of our concerns was making sure he was okay and giving him enough time to go through treatment and recover,” DeKnight says. “We immediately shut down production in New Zealand. The writers kept working [on Season 2] because we were waiting for the full prognosis and how long the treatment would be. We got close to halfway through the scripts when we got the full prognosis on Andy what the extent of his treatment would be. Cancer is never good, but we were very thankful it was such a strong prognosis.”

Given Whitfield’s expected medical treatment, and given the recovery and training needed to get the actor back in physical shape, the second season had to be pushed to at least summer 2011.

“That would have meant the show would have been off the air 16-18 months, which was obviously a concern,” DeKnight says. “We didn’t want people to forget the show or lose interest.”

The producers’ first idea was doing a two-hour special event.

“I was planning on doing a flashback episode in Season 2 because John Hannah said he loved working with us so much, he graciously said, ‘If you ever want to have me back, let’s see if we can work something out.’ So we were planning a flashback episode, and I figured, ‘Well, why not blow it up into two hours?’”

Starz wasn’t enthusiastic about a two-hour movie. “So [co-creator] Robert Tapert said, ‘Well what about four hours?’” DeKnight says. “Four hours is an odd duck from a writing point of view. You don’t have enough time to build intricate storylines, but it’s too long to do a nice, tight story.”

Finally, Starz gave a counter-offer: how about six hours? “At that point, everybody was in,” DeKnight says. “That’s how the prequel came about.”

Is DeKnight concerned about disappointing fans?

“Oh, absolutely,” he says. “It keeps me awake at night. It’s always very, very dangerous to change the formula that works. It’s a testament to Starz that, even though they had the same jitters, they said, ‘Nope. Creatively we understand what you’re doing, so go for it.’ It is a different show, without a doubt. Will people enjoy it as much? I hope so. I hope they enjoy it more. But it’s definitely a roll of the dice.”

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Clare, Ramirez, Murray

Dustin Clare, a popular Australian actor, has been cast as the lead of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, a six-episode “prequel” Spartacus series that Starz put into production when lead actor Andy Whitfield was struck with cancer.

Clare plays Gannicus, a gladiator who becomes champion of the Capua prior to Spartacus’ arrival.

Whitfield, who has recovered from cancer treatment, will have a small role in two of the series’ episodes.

Spartacus actors Lucy Lawless, John Hannah, Peter Mensah, and Manu Bennett are also returning, in more substantial roles.

Other new actors joining Clare will be Jaime Murray, who plays a social-climbing friend of Lucy Lawless’s Lucretia, and Marisa Ramirez, who plays a slave-girl.

Spartacus: Gods in the Arena will air next January. A second “regular” season featuring Whitfield will reportedly begin production later this year.