Reviews

There seems to be a tendency in making "historical" television shows that excessive cursing and full frontal male and female nudity equates to "authenticity". "Rome", as a perfect example, had massive amounts of f-bombs and the like, yet managed to balance it out with a very well developed script and adherence to historical sources and events, making it very accurate in its portrayal of the way events were perceived by contemporaries and modern historians. One can never get 100% accuracy, so certain elements are always sacrificed on the altar of entertainment. A fact that can be easily accepted if it's done properly. Deadwood took the cursing a bit too far for my taste, but I suppose people of that era had less class. Spartacus: Blood and Sand, takes it to a ridiculous level. Not because of the frequency but because of the way it is incorporated into the extremely wooden dialogue, which frankly tries much too hard to be "authentic". There are good elements in it, though. Lucy Lawless and John Hannah are well cast and fight to elevate the bad writing to something more acceptable. Whitfield is not horrible but not a vision either.

The main problem with this particular show lies in what came before it. I have seen those who state that you cannot compare this to "Rome" even though it has obviously been spawned by a wish to create a show of equal quality, much like many writes attempted to create the new "Lost", which never really succeeded. "Spartacus" tries to combine the intrigues and well-written script of "Rome" with the macho images and fighting from "300", yet the graphics department on this show were either not very talented, ill-instructed or poorly funded. Or maybe even all three because the CGI is horrible. It looks like the cinematics of computer games from the mid-1990s and while they looked awesome then, now, they look old-fashioned and less realistic. Additionally, it hurts itself by drawing inspiration from "300", which was really, really, really bad. I mean super horrible. The constant slow motion fight scenes and super-buffed and oiled men gets old really fast.

Bottom line is, that "Spartacus" had the potential for being fantastic. Had they brought in more inspiration from "Rome" and the original "Spartacus", with Kirk Douglas, instead of letting itself be diluted with the unmitigated crap that excretes from "300", it could have brought us a great spectacle, which would have been utterly enjoyed. Instead, you find yourself waiting for it to end, so you can move on to better things. Ducktales, perhaps.

It took me a couple of episodes to really get excited about Battlestar Galactica. When I finished watching all I could find, including webisodes and extended episodes, I was hooked and wanted more. Enter Caprica. A show which was going to show me the birth of Cylons. Just my thing. I watched the pilot and it was eight kinds of not awesome. I found myself having to sit through grueling childhood trauma stories of William Adama and the story about an angry teenager, whose virtual representation is inserted into the Cylon prototype. Which essentially gives us a robot with issues. The premise of BSG has always been that the Cylons were sentient and were thus able to rebel. I had never imagined that their starting point (this time around) was going to be teen angst.

Caprica sports a fine cast, who deliver good acting performances. It is just a major fault of the show that the writing of the characters is boring. The sense of urgency in which the characters of BSG developed and evolved is gone. The only sense of urgency in Caprica is that there is a deadline for a delivery of robots. True, it is a family drama which should depict the birth of the modern Cylons but as far as family dramas go, it is not all that interesting. It hooks itself to the trend of throwing little pieces of the original in, to give it a connection both with the re-imagined series and the original one, such as "by your command" and "so say we all" but the way it is done, makes it seem to grasp at connectivity instead of focusing on developing a story which is interesting to follow.

Nine episodes in, I can only hope that the show will take a turn for the better and start giving us some story lines which will once again enthrall and captivate the audience. If it succeeds in doing so, it will still suffer from the curse of having a 9 episode long introduction to interesting events, which frankly isn't good enough.

Before you sit down to watch this show, get your history books. Have you got them? Good. Now put them out of your reach and discard whatever knowledge you have readily available. This show has anachronistic references, language and persons. And yet, it delivers roughly 22 minutes of undiluted fun and games. I've seen others review this show negatively due to the historic persons who are sometimes decades out of place. Well, so what? The story takes place on a fictitious island called Pulau Pulau, the governor of which is a stereotypical, campy French man, an over the top British lady inventor (whose attractiveness is comparable only to Earth's gravitational pull), and a man (Campbell) who is so present-day American and corny that you have to love it. It has been compared to previous series of the same type (Xena, Hercules) but is superior in many ways, because it doesn't assume too much about itself. Both those shows, however campy and silly they may have been, always had some sort of moral undertone. This show is just silly, goofy and a wonderful insult to every nationality represented in it. You have to love it. Verne Troyer plays Napoleon. The second you see him, nobody in their right mind could possibly have anything negative to say about the anachronistic premise of this show.

It's wonderful, engaging and short enough not to get too much. Perfect for a Sunday afternoon, when all you want to do is sit back and be entertained. It's not Brisco County Jr., but fun to watch nonetheless. It's slapstick humour, bad (and I do mean baaaad) puns and overacting extraordinaire. Reminds me a bit of the old Batman from the '60s. Which is nothing but a compliment.