Spartacus: House of Ashur

Spartacus is one of a kind. It is stylized and soapy and smart; it revels in brutality and bloodshed but it cannot be discounted as a cartoon (it actually does employ subtext, sometimes quite deftly). It nimbly avoids being a slog, but it does weigh the cost of the suffering caused by greed and exploitation as it surveys a decaying Rome on the verge of civil war (any resemblances to the times we’re enduring seem entirely intentional). This show is not for everyone, and would that more programs would try for that kind of unashamed distinctiveness. But the drama is for anyone willing to understand that Spartacus absolutely knows what it’s going for and why.