Lucy Lawless in 'Spartacus: Blood and Sand' - A '300' for TV?

By Paula Haifley

I’ve never been scolded by a famous TV actress before, let alone one with twinkling blue eyes, a devilish grin, and a reputation for on-screen butt kicking as Xena, Warrior Princess. When Lucy Lawless, one of the stars of the upcoming TV series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, teasingly gave me a hard time for not speaking up much during the press conference for her show at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con, it did make me ask more questions. I guess it’s that commanding personality that serves her well in her role as a powerful, manipulative Roman wife on the show...

Spartacus: Blood and Sand isn’t some weird Tony Curtis/Valentino mishmash, but the latest New Zealand-shot fantasy show from Rob Tapert (also Lawless’ husband) and Sam Raimi, the team that brought us Xena, Hercules, and the Evil Dead Trilogy, but shame on you if you’re a Pretty/Scary reader who doesn’t already know that. The show’s head writer and show runner is Steven S. DeKnight, who, for an ex-Buffy and Angel scribe, doesn’t look nerdy at all, and sports full-sleeve tribal tattoos on both arms. But enough about the hot people in the room... okay, Erin Cummings, who stars as Spartacus’ wife Sura, is very believable as the woman for whom Spartacus would lead a slave revolt to get back to. She’s like super-smokin’, hide-your-boyfriend, I’ll-be-surprised-if-she’s-not-near-the-top-of-Maxium’s-babe-list-next-year hot.

Since it is airing on Starz, Tapert and DeKnight promised that Spartacus will be a hard-R rated show, so it’ll be like male gladiator Xena but with actual nudity and obviously gay romances and lots of gory violence (hence the Blood and Sand of the title). The show is also influenced by the style of 300, with actors with crazy abs in front of green screens and digital backgrounds added later (hopefully without the “airbrushed on a t-shirt” look of that film). There’s so much of the sex half of sex and violence that star Andy Whitfield (he is... Spartacus) has a stunt penis, which Cummings named Kirk Douglas in loving tribute to the classic Stanley Kubrick film. Lawless plays Lucretia, whose husband Batiatus (John Hannah, the Scottish guy from Four Weddings and a Funeral) owns both the gladiator/slave Spartacus and the camp in which he trains. The vast majority of the women of Rome had no power, but Lucretia was one of the lucky ones who pulled puppet strings from behind the scenes, and had enough freedom (in the world of the show at any rate) to be carrying on steamy affairs with some of her gladiator/slaves.

You can see the trailer for the show at the end of this article. The good points: no one has a cheesy Angelina-Jolie-in-Alexander accent, what costumes and backgrounds there are look realistic, there’s cool blood sprays and historically accurate, gnarly weaponry, and there must be tons of nudity in the show because there’s some that was quite obviously covered up. The bad points: lots of slow motion fighting and a bit too much of the style of 300 to be taken seriously as a drama. Trailers tend to be flashy, so check it out for yourself to decide if you’ll be watching when the show premieres in January. I’ll at least be there for the first episode.