I just spent roughly the last 13 hours of my life watching the first season of the Starz original TV show Spartacus: Blood and Sand, an endeavor that came about indirectly through Marissa’s purchase of a Wi-Fi adapter for her new Blu-ray disc player, which allows us to watch any movie on our Netflix watch instantly cue on our big screen tv, rather than just on our small computer screens.

I decided there was no better way to celebrate our new technology than by experiencing the orgy of violence that is Spartacus: Blood and Sand, and so, that is what I did. I’ll admit that after the first few episodes, I was not yet hooked. My thoughts flowed somewhere along these lines.

“God, this is cheezy.”

“I did not realize that the human body contained so much blood.”

“Ooh, boobies!”

“Eww, dicks!”

That was about it. The show does not initially promote much intellectual stimulation. Like the Roman arenas from which it draws it’s inspiration, it’s attraction is of a baser nature. Ultimately however, this appealed to my brutish instincts and by the mid-season stretch I desired ever more overly-dramatized and cartoonish bloodshed (think Kill Bill, or the movie 300), and the pleasing amount of bared Roman-babe bush was only partially negated by the overabundance of exposed man-dong.

Perhaps my favorite part of the series is the disclaimer at the beginning of each episode that states that “Spartacus is a historical portrayal of ancient Rome’s society that contains graphic violence and adult content.”

 Yeah. And the poisonous crap they serve at your local China King Buffet is “authentic asian cuisine” too.

All in all, while the show is undoubtably silly and extravagant, at the culmination of the season finale I was left both strangely satiated, and simultaneously longing for more. Well done Starz. You have taken me, a discerning and well-educated man of breeding and restraint, and turned me into one of the mob. Oh well. When in Rome, as they say. I’m going to go lift some weights and rough up my roomates. Luckily for them episodes of the next season of Spartacus, Gods of the Arena, (which confusingly, in the world of Spartacus, is a prequel to the storyline carried throughout Blood and Sand) begin in only a few days. Let us hope they survive the beatings that long.

Oh yeah, and happy Martin Luther King day.

Here is a link to the trailer for Blood and Sand.

And here is the link for Gods of the Arena.