Spartacus

Ya, season 1 episode 1 was kind of weak. But you get a payoff pretty quick in the following episodes.

Gods of the Arena (the 2nd season, which was a prequel to season 1) is also very good

Season 3 and onward are sort of mixed. I also do agree on replacement Naevia not being as good as the original. The actress who originally played her ended up playing Maze/Mazikeen on Lucifer

I have Gods of the Arena and season 1 on the same footing. Neither is necessarily better than the other.

As a stand-alone I'd have to go with S1 since it lays the ground work. But if I had to sit down and re-watch one of them, it's going to be a Gods of Arena rewatch, not a season 1 rewatch.

gak said:

I didn't think I would like it at first, but Gods of the Arena was an amazing season too imo. It was never the same when they eventually had to replace Andy.

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I actually skipped out on later seasons simply because they didn't measure up to Gods of the Arena. It was on par with S1, and then it just hit a big high note-- after it felt like later seasons were just bonus rounds that weren't really must-see. I checked S2, S3 out but lost interest quick, would have preferred them finding a way to do a prequel/sequel to Gods of the Arena maybe with more perspective characters.

But that was the whole point in the first place of Gods of the Arena. It was meant to carry the brand between seasons and let people know it's still a thing which it excelled at.

2 was the worst in effect because you had to get over Andy and that was hard and they had to find something to replace the house drama and a villain that we cared about beating

3 had this but by then it was a hard march to the end we knew was coming. But by then all the new actors and characters had their footing and it was good in practice but poor in effect as it was winding up and up in actions but down in effect because we all knew the titanic sank

Yes the show wasnt the same after Andy's passing, but I felt that Liam did a good job filling in.

I also thought Crassus and Caesar were fantastic in S3.

I've always wanted to binge Gods of the Arena, then season 1-3, then binge Rome right after.