Spartacus. Just Spartacus.

I mentioned last week that I have recently started watching Spartacus. Well, we finished it yesterday. I am in pieces. I can't think of another show that has hit me as hard as this one has. Even Buffy. Spartacus has completely blown me away. It is supreme television - the kind of series that doesn't come along very often.

But, I'll admit, I didn't really want to watch it at first. The main reason I did watch it was because MANY twitter friends were heaping Olympus sized praise on the show. I also wanted to watch because of the creator, Steven S DeKnight. He has written and produced many of my favourite shows, including Buffy and Angel, and I like to support writers/producers from these favourite shows. But when the programme began airing in the UK, we missed it starting and decided that we would wait until it had finished completely and watch it in one hit - which is what we did.

But why am I blogging about it? BECAUSE I WANT EVERYONE IN THE WORLD TO WATCH THIS SHOW! And I will tell you why (no spoilers in this post but some of the links I've included may contain spoilers).

image from: http://spartacus.wikia.com/wiki/File:Spartacus-blood-sand-kill-them-all.jpg

1. Let's get the obvious out of the way. This is a show for adults. There is glorious, technicolour violence. There are sensual and bawdy sex scenes. There is a full vocabulary of language from the sublime to the vulgar (By Jupiter's Cock!). This is one of the reasons I love it. It has not been distilled down for teenagers, as so much is nowadays. 

It is for adults.


2. The sex scenes. I know this was mentioned already but the sex scenes in the show serve more than the obvious purpose. As with the demons in Buffy representing Buffy's real life issues, the sex in Spartacus symbolises other aspects of the storyline.

3. The cast. The cast is perfect. From Andy Whitfield and Liam Mcintyre as Spartacus; to Manu Bennett as Crixus; Peter Mensah as Oenomaus: John Hannah as Batiatus; Dustin Clare as Gannicus; and on and on and on. For me, there is not a single mis-step in any of the casting.

4. The baddies. From Batiatus to Glaber to Crassus, the baddies are each different and driven by their individual motives, with none falling to the moustache twirling baddie tropes. My particular favourite is Ashur, played by the wonderful Nick Tarabay. What a bastard!

Image from: http://images.wikia.com/spartacus/images/1/13/Bscap0011.jpg

5. The friendships. The Brotherhood of the Gladiators has some of the most interesting and layered friendships on TV, but the standout has to be Spartacus and Crixus (although my personal favourite is between Spartacus and Varro).


6. The sexuality. Honestly, I'm not obsessed! In the show, all types of relationships are shown, but one of the most loving is between 2 of the rebels. They are both men. And it doesn't matter a jot. Where the new Battlestar Galactica created roles that could be played by either men or women (they wrote people not genders), Spartacus has characters that have relationships. Not GAY relationships, or STRAIGHT relationships. Just relationships. No fuss, no muss. So refreshing.

7.  The central idea of what Spartacus stands for. Freedom. Freedom to choose. Even if that choice leads to pain, it is still a choice.

"I have done this thing because it is just. Blood demands blood. We have lived and lost at the whims of our masters for too long. I would not have it so. I would not see the passing of a brother, for the purpose of sport. I would not see another heart ripped from chest, or breath forfeit for no cause. I know not all of you wish this, yet it is done. It is done. Your lives are your own. Forge your own path, or join with us, and together 

WE SHALL SEE ROME TREMBLE."

And there we have it. I'm sure that as soon as I publish this I will think of another lost of reasons that will wish I had included. The trouble is, how do you define what makes something as good as this and not miss something out? If you would like to comment, please do so but PLEASE no spoilers.

If you do watch the show please come back and let me know what you think.

Characters Are People Too

I am currently watching Spartacus for the first time. My plan was to watch one episode per week and blog about it. I started watching it two weeks ago and have just finished 'Vengeance'. We are going to start watching the final series 'War of the Damned' tonight. It is because of this programme that I haven't blogged the last two weeks because EVERY SPARE MOMENT IS SPENT WITH THIS SHOW!! If I'm not watching it, I can't get it out of my bloody head!!!

Anyhoo. As I've been watching it, the sheer excellence of the writing made me think of something done by lesser shows that really annoys me. And that is treating characters as plot devices instead of living breathing things (I know they're not but stay with me a minute!).

The desire of any show is to draw in the viewer. To have them buy into that show. And the main way in which this is done is through the characters. We need to believe in them - their motives, their actions, their desires, etc.

One of the quickest ways to stop your viewers buying into the characters is to have them behave in such a way that goes completely against the very essences that you have spent X amount of episodes building.

For example - Heroes.

Series one of Heroes is one of the best seasons of anything. Ever. So why then, did it turn to shit after that? Here is my theory.

I remember reading that the creator planned to have each season be a completely new story with completely new cast. Maybe the odd character from previous seasons would pop up, but other than that it would be a new cast. Fantastic! I then remember reading that as the show built in popularity the studio "requested" that this didn't happen as the cast had become quite famous/popular and they felt audiences wouldn't like the change. So they didn't. 

So, during season one the writers had spent a lot of time breathing life in to Hiro, Peter, Nathan, etc. Then from season two onwards they then seemed to trample all over these characters - having them behave in ways that the 'people' we had grown to love/hate in series one would NEVER have behaved in! Personally, this was the main reason I stopped watching at the start of series three. I didn't believe in them anymore.

PS - Spartacus DOES NOT do this!

Are you 'avin a larf? Apparently not!

Have you noticed, in real life, one of the things that us humans always do?

We laugh. 

Even in the darkest of times. We laugh.

So why don't characters in TV and film laugh? It has become a real bug-bear for me. Humans make jokes to get through trying times. They don't do this in TV & film. This has a big affect on the reality of the premise.

There have been many shows that are guilty of this, but one show in particular was 24. They never made a joke about the crap they were dealing with and Jack really could have done with a smile! and having friends who are in the Police or Medical professions, I know this not to be true. They have the darkest sense of humour. This is what allows them to deal with the depravity and damage they see. 

With the increase in the extra serious Scandinavian-esque dramas, I think this is only going to get worse.


Now, pull my finger!

Things I Love - Buffy

Two days ago it was the 10th anniversary of the last episode of Buffy being shown in the US. Since then, I've been wanting to blog about the show, but didn't want to rush my thoughts. So, after a little rumination, I am ready to spurt forth my thoughts on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

This is without a doubt my favourite TV show, if not one of my favourite things. No other show, film, book, etc has had the same impact on me that Buffy has. Some have come close - Battlestar Galactica and Veronica Mars for example - but none have matched it.

Some people will look at Buffy and they will wonder why this show is so special to me. I think there are many reasons, one of them being my age when the show started. I watched the show when it first aired on BBC2 in 1998. I was 23 at the time - in my first job, trying to find my way in my world.  At the start of the show the characters themselves were 16 and in High School. Although I was a few years older than them, I could see myself in many of their choices and decisions, obviously not including the areas to do with demons and vampires! But this was another beautiful thing about the show - take away the vampires and the demons and the group of people you are left with are some of the most realistically written and portrayed characters I've seen in anything else. They are trying so hard to be "good", but they do make mistakes and sometimes operate in the grey areas. For me this was the first time that a TV show dispensed with the stark white and black hats, allowing the characters to get a little dirty. Isn't that life??

Image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer

As well as the characters, I also loved the actors that played them - Sarah Michelle Gellar perfect as Buffy; Alyson Hannigan who can cry like no other actress/actor; Nicholas Brendon playing the comedy and pathos of Xander to a tee; Anthony Stewart Head - so suave and handsome playing the father figure of the show with a twinkle in his eye. And there was also the rest of the gang - David Boreanaz, James Marsters, Seth Green, Amber Benson, Emma Caulfield, Michelle Trachtenberg and Kristine Sutherland. The range portrayed by these actors is immense and I think their success is vastly under-rated.

I also loved that the show was never afraid to do what you weren't expecting, keeping you on your toes and not allowing you to relax when a character's life was in danger. I can't remember the first episode I watched, but I saw a few episodes in series one. It didn't blow me away. I remember then seeing a few episodes from series two - including School Hard with Spike and Drusilla's first appearance - and liking where the show was going. And then there was, for me, the game changing two-part episode of Surprise and Innocence, in which the main love interest for Buffy in the show, Angel, was transformed in to the big bad for the series, Angelus. I remember admiring the bravery of a show to do this and to have him then go on to be a REAL baddie, played so superbly by David Boreanaz.

Then there were the other 'brave'/different episodes - The Body, Once More with Feeling (the musical episode) and Hush (the silent episode) among many others. 

Then the character deaths! But not just the deaths but the way in which they were dealt with, giving the characters the time and space to grieve. This doesn't tend to happen in a lot of shows, with characters seemingly springing back from the loss of a loved one.

A lot of these points go back to the quality of the writing and the attention to detail given by the writers and the show's creator, Joss Whedon. For example, at the end of the second episode of series one (The Harvest) the following dialogue takes place:

BUFFY: Well, I gotta look on the bright side. Maybe I can still get kicked out of school.

XANDER: Hey, that's a plan. 'Cause a lot of schools aren't on Hellmouths. 

WILLOW: Maybe you could blow something up. They're really strict about that.

 BUFFY: I was aiming for a subtle approach, like excessive not studying.

GILES: The earth is doomed. 

In the final episode of the show (series seven's 'Chosen'), as the gang are preparing to face the final battle, this happens:

XANDER: See, it's the eye-patch thing.

BUFFY: Right, do you go with the full black secret agent look?

WILLOW: of the ruffy shirt pirate-slash-poet feel? Sensitive yet manly.

XANDER: Now you're getting a little renassaince fair on me.

GILES: The earth is definitely doomed.

Image from: http://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Chosen

But what makes it even better is that the order in which they walk away from Buffy as they go to their battlestations, is the order in which she met them in the very first episode.

Perfect!

Why Can't A Woman Lead?

I recently watched a very interesting BBC 2 series called 'The United States of Television: America in Primetime' (Linky). This was a 4 part series that, each week, examined a different aspect of US primetime TV - Man Of The House, The Misfit, The Independent Woman and The Crusader. It tracked the development of these characters through the last 60 years of television and how these developments reflected wider issues within US society. I really enjoyed this show.

Until the last episode.

This episode looked at the Crusader - the character that is driven to do the right thing, even if by doing the right thing, they have to do the wrong thing. The characters that work in the grey. Here are the characters they discussed:

• Jack Bauer - 24
• Gregory House - House
• Andy Sipowicz - NYPD Blue
• Hawkeye Pierce - M*A*S*H
• Omar Little - The Wire
• Frank Pembleton - Homicide: Life on the Street
• Vic Mackey - The Shield
• Dexter Morgan - Dexter
• Dana Scully - The X Files

Other than the fact that there are some fantastic characters and shows there, notice anything about that list?

ONE WOMAN?

AND NOT EVEN THE LEAD IN THE SHOW?

REALLY??

And this got me to thinking - is there only one woman on that list because this programme in itself was sexist? Or is there only one woman on that list because, for some reason, a female led TV show just isn't accepted by primetime viewers?

If the answer is the second point, then why is this? Why do the majority of viewers struggle with women led, primetime TV shows? And if so, why do these shows tend to well in non-primetime slots - Buffy, Alias, Xena, Scandal, Dollhouse, Dark Angel, Veronica Mars, etc, etc, etc?

What does this say about the majority's view on the role of women? Are people still so entrenched in their view of what a woman should and shouldn't do that they cannot watch her 'kick ass' - physically and/or metaphorically?

As I have no such limitation on my views (thank you Wonder Woman and Col. Wilma Deering), I really don't know the answer to any of these questions.

Things I Love - Conventions

I imagine that some of you just thought "Conventions? Me too!!"

And some of you thought "Conventions? Nerd!"

Yep! And I don't give 2 figs that some of you have just judged me and maybe even stopped reading. You are maybe the people that hear the word "convention" and think of the stereotype images of what happens at a convention and the types of people that go to them.

Allow me to enlighten you.

There are many different types of conventions, but it's fair to say they can be roughly categorised into 2 - the weekend conventions and the signing events. The signing events tend to be larger (such as Collectormania, Sci fi weekender or London Film and Comic Con). They also tend to have a larger selection of guests for you to go along and meet. They are a lot of fun and an equal amount of queueing! The weekend conventions (run by companies such as Starfury and Massive Events in the UK) tend to specialise in one tv show in particular or a certain genre. My personal preference is for the weekend conventions as they have fewer guests and as they focus on one show/genre, I know that all the guests are going to be people I want to meet. But that's just me. 

So at a convention, there are autograph signings, photoshoots with and talks by the guests. I particularly like the talks as you can ask questions and hear anecdotes from your favourites tv shows. The guests are normally very honest and relaxed. I still can't believe some of the people I've been lucky enough to meet - George Takei, Patrick Stewart, James Marsters, J August Richards, Nicholas Brendon, Adam Baldwin, Patricia Quinn, Alex Winter, etc. Talented and SO pretty!! 

But the guests are only part of the reason that I love conventions.

From my first convention 4 years ago for Veronica Mars to my latest, Inva3ion, I have made some amazing friends. I don't just mean acquaintances. I mean FRIENDS. People that have shown me true kindness and support. Last year, for the first time, I was even brave enough to attend 2 conventions by myself, purely because I knew my friends would be there. 

These are people that also fully accept my full on, squeeing, fangirl side! And why? Cos they're as bad as me! It is a fantastic feeling. To know proper friendship with people and to know they aren't judging me.

And don't forget, what happens at the con, stays at the con!

All photos property of me and not to be used without my express permission. Ta

 

The Swindle Hypothesis

I don't watch The Big Bang Theory. I've tried, several times, but just can't get into it. I think this is because . . . .

THEY'RE CONNING US

The show always seems to be laughing AT nerds, not WITH them. I recently saw some of an episode in which Penny (Kaley Kuoco) became addicted to playing online games. She stopped washing, going to work and doing her hair (one joke played on the fact that she had cheetos stuck in her bird-nest like 'do'). What is this saying about the show's writer's opinions of gamers?

Think of all the characters in the show. Then think of the stereotypes of nerds. Now think of the all the characters in the show again. See what I mean?

I have to applaud the writers of this show for this feat. They've managed to create a show that points fun at the very people that sit watching. And then, they've managed to cast certain guest stars who are well known sci fi genre actors!! 

*slow claps*

This is just my opinion.