Spartacus: House of Ashur

This is the effect of getting old. 15 years ago when Spartacus first aired, Lucy Lawless probably was the "much older lady" to most of us. Now, the character is probably in your prime dating range, but her character hasn't aged. So you still think of her as the older lady in your mind even though she's not.

Meanwhile she's pretty close in age to this other chick, Claudia Black who for some reason some of you remember as being hot. I think you all found her attractive from Farscape? Which was a quarter century ago. She's actually old, not the 20-something you remember.

i just turned 40 make it stop

I really enjoyed the first few seasons of this show. It's just violence, blood, and sex. Brainless, enjoyable entertainment.

I gave this season a shot despite all the clues suggesting some jogger Shanequa was going to be the star and never made it beyond half way through the first episode. Maybe it gets better, but what I saw was terrible. It was so bad that it felt like I was watching an SNL parody of the first couple seasons. Ashur was a perfectly fine, interesting even, supporting character, but the dude cannot carry this show.

Grabbit Allworth said:

I really enjoyed the first few seasons of this show. It's just violence, blood, and sex. Brainless, enjoyable entertainment.

I gave this season a shot despite all the clues suggesting some jogger Shanequa was going to be the star and never made it beyond half way through the first episode. Maybe it gets better, but what I saw was terrible. It was so bad that it felt like I was watching an SNL parody of the first couple seasons. Ashur was a perfectly fine, interesting even, supporting character, but the dude cannot carry this show.

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She's not in the first episode.

Bald Brah said:

She's not in the first episode.

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Never said she was, but she's all over the trailers and she's a huge part of the season -- right?

I don't understand the point of your post.

You're reviewing a show you admittedly haven't even watched. I'm up to episode 5 and there is very little if any girl bossery. Shaniqua is a minor part of the show with very little screen time. Most of the show revolves around Ashur and the political intrigue. The gladiators are not given the bulk of the screen time and the woman is treated exactly as she would have been. A side show. Granted her limited screen time is pretty bad. She obviously can't swing a sword to save her life IRL and her fight choreography is terrible. But everyone else is excellent and the show is leaning more into Julius Ceasar as the main antagonist.

Everything about the show is a continuation of what happened after season 3 so if you liked that this is more of the same.

Grabbit Allworth said:

Never said she was, but she's all over the trailers and she's a huge part of the season -- right?

I don't understand the point of your post.

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Also commenting without personally watching.. Randomfilmtalk has been reviewing them.

sortof. He asserts she starts off well.
Ashur is an atypical Domini. He doesn't care about tradition. only spectacle. He saw how profitable dwarves fighting was. so, picked her up and put her into the stable purely for the novelty of it.

She gets her ass kicked, is abused, nearly raped by the others. She ripes a dudes dick off to avoid rape. this only makes them hate her more. she is too weak to raise a shield. (which instead of just giving her a lighter shield... they give her 2 swords...)
Ashur, who is a shit gladiator, kicks her ass, repeatedly.

he does assert it all goes to shit though. epi 3 iirc? suddenly she turns into superman. Wins a 3v1 against 3 properly trained gladiators in a fair fight. which is just stupid.

Ep6 was another good one. Shaniquatus was unconscious the whole episode but we get some good intrigue and back stabbing. I haven't seen dwarf actors this good since Time Bandits. Fuck that little game of thrones idiot.

No season 2 greenlit. Some problems with the show I identified on a quick first watch that could affect renewal (only halfway through the season)

- redhead is a serious miscast, atrocious acting. No credits. I got Cinemax softcore acting vibes right away from her-- sure enough I check her credits after watching a few episodes of her struggle to deliver dialogue and learn she only has done daytime soap operas. Nearly unwatchable when onscreen.

- didn't go hard enough on woke. Women getting hit too much. Execs aren't going to like a lot of the scenes. They likely got direct complaints over it.

- relatively weak supporting cast. They don't grab and hold your attention like Season 1 of Spartacus. The men in the ludus are the weakest part of the show. Not good for a Spartacus franchise show. Any time Ashur isn't on screen the ludus is fastforward material. This is not how the show was in Spartacus or Gods of the Arena.

- there is no Gannicus-like lead, no Crixus-like lead, no Spartacus-like lead. No charismatic leads. There are "look-a-likes" that look like they came from a male model casting call. No real appeal in the setting. Doesn't help gladiators are also all of very average height and it shows on screen when they all stand near eachother. There are no guys standing out. Just feels like there is a lack of lead role power among the ludus. Season 1 Spartacus you had Jai Courtney, Peter Mensah, Andy, even the guy playing Barca was more interesting and sellable as a gladiator. tldr; the guys of the ludus are all smaller than others that were previously depicted in the franchise. Immersion-breaking at times. Everyone is shrunk.

- Ashur is great as main cast, but can't carry a show solely by himself. The supporting cast outside of Claudia Black is incredibly weak. She is having to carry too much weight. They lucked out she's a very competent actor and can deliver dialogue on par with Lucy Lawless or greater.

Overall, no loss if this doesn't get renwed-- which it seems is unlikely to happen, as the scripts for Season 2 were finished months ago before Season 1 aired. No word from Starz unless they are waiting for numbers from international markets.

Grabbit Allworth said:

Ashur was a perfectly fine, interesting even, supporting character, but the dude cannot carry this show.

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You hit eject at the right time. It only gets worse in terms of them trying to force him to carry the entire show. It becomes a bit of a parody where the writers are really forcing Ashur because they have nothing else interesting going on. I busted up laughing at times because it seems Nick Tarabay is fully aware of what the show is (not much bones there) and he's hamming it up with ridiculous over-the-top over-acting by Episode 5. There is no other way to explain the over-acting besides the actor realizing the amount of scenes he's having to do without any supporting storylines at all is comical. There is no story arc that doesn't involve Ashur. Every scene has to have Ashur in it or there is literally nothing going on.

This is a far cry from any season of Spartacus or Gods of the Arena.

I found it entertaining. The gladiators were kind of an afterthought. You had a couple manlets that were supposed to be father and son and the Sean Penn looking father was into the dark meat. Pretty wretched acting and they were terribly small and undersized vs what we are used to. All the other gladiators might as well not even had names.

The real intrigue in the show was mostly between Ashur and Ceasar. But Ceasar disappears halfway through the show and we are left with his girl boss wife. It honestly felt like they were going to angle into a Ceasar spinoff but then he just gets cut from the show in the middle of it all. I liked this Ceasar actor much better than the old Spartacus one. He definitely had that Adonis look and his over the top debauchery was hilarious.

All in all it wasn't a great show but still way more fun to watch than most other crap on TV. They did the fighting scenes justice and there was tons of off color humor. Very little in the way of woke garbage time which was unexpected with the shows "lead" actress. Luckily for us she was barely in it and she played her part well enough to not be annoying or distracting.

Completely forgot about this show. Still running? How is the man butt to titty ratio?