Spartacus: Blood and Sand

Spartacus develops into an enjoyably soapy escape--a la the similarly sweaty and sex-drenched "True Blood"--as its first season progresses.

There's no denying that stylized decapitations are entertaining, especially when accompanied by a generous helping of soft porn.

Given that Spartacus does not stumble in what it sets out to do, one's objections to the show, if objections one has, will be moral, or simple matters of taste, to the extent that those two concerns can actually be separated.

Eventually, the series makes way for just enough plot to give our poor, overstimulated eyes a rest. There's a bit of political maneuvering, fierce rivalries, the examination of slavery vs. free will, ludus-yard hazing and even romance.

Spartacus fetishizes violence even more than it depicts sex and nudity, which is often. There’s a whole lot of B.C. banging going on here.

It is trashy fun as Spartacus, who is not really that interested in overthrowing oppressive Roman rule right now as he is in getting his sexed-up wife back, fights his way up gladiator rankings and out.

The result is compulsively watchable pulp, provided you have a high threshold for decapitations and copulations, sometimes simultaneous.

It's no "Rome," but at least it appears headed more in that direction.

It's deliciously, marvelously bad, and I was helpless in its grip. It's a long way from Kubrick, but what isn't?

After Spartacus blows most of its special-effects budget on the pilot, it settles into a not-bad sword-and-sandal genre series, a la "Xena" or "Hercules."

Some viewers will be riveted to the sex, violence, beautiful nude bods and sensory gluttony of Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Others will be turned off almost instantly.

Though the violence is designed to be gorgeous, like a graphic novel, it doesn’t have the pacing of a comic book. The creators of Spartacus: Blood and Sand seem a little too enamored of their ability to sketch a vast Thracian tableau, a fight scene, or a coliseum full of cheering CGI Italians.

There's no denying that Spartacus does what it sets out to do fairly well--and in a way that doesn't duplicate anything else now on TV. Were it broadcast free over the air where children might find it, one might blanch, but that's not the case.

Toto, we're not in I, Claudius, or even Rome, anymore. The problem, though, is that this Spartacus is so over the top that it begs to be considered as total camp.

Spartacus is derivative as entertainment and primitively pandering as a diverting spectacle of campy historical fiction.

The trappings up front are so over the top that to say you watch Spartacus to see a contemporary reworking of a cinema classic is like saying you go to Hooters for the food.

To be fair, the program does improve marginally after the premiere, but by then the bar's set so low a three-legged horse could clear it.

So, one gets an episode about Spartacus' lessons at gladiator school and another episode about his fights in "the pit," a place brutal enough to make professional wrestling look like ballet. With such thin stories each week, it's small wonder that sex and violence are used to take up the slack.

If you're a teenage boy who loved "300"--or any other demographic who loved "300"--you may well dig all the digitized, slow-motion blood splurts, the abundant nudity (albeit with some of the full frontal coming from male characters as well as female) and the stylized, computer-generated backgrounds. But stay far away if none of those things make you say "Hells yeah!"

This attempt to milk the success of the 2008 movie “300’’ is a major dud, from the C-level production values and shoddy green-screen technology to the horrible makeup that turns star Lucy Lawless into a Raggedy Ann doll.