The Upcoming Spartacus: House of Ashur: Some Reflections

The STARZ Channel's series Spartacus was not a hit on anywhere near the scale of, for example, The Sopranos, or perhaps more comparable in being a period soap opera, Game of Thrones. This was not surprising. Not only was it the case that STARZ had a smaller subscriber base than HBO (which pretty consistently had about 50 percent+ more subscribers through the relevant years), but it was also a relative latecomer to the original series' game. It was, too, the case that (at least with the more culturally literate portion of their audience) this particular show had more baggage than those who greenlit it seemed aware, given the number of retellings of the story of Spartacus over the years, not least in a genuine Hollywood classic, the multi-Oscar winning Kirk Douglas-produced, Dalton Trumbo-scripted, Anthony Mann- and Stanley Kubrick-directed 1960 adaptation of Howard Fast's 1951 novel. It matters, too, just what that classic offered. If Fast's truly extraordinary novel is (unfortunately) little read today its humane sensibility still managed to survive A Clockwork Orange director Kubrick's extreme misanthropy, and his predictable flirtation with the Cold Warrior anti-revolutionism Arthur Koestler displayed in his treatment of the theme in The Gladiators (due to Kubrick's not having complete creative control here).

Anyone who admired that film, or even simply had impressions of how the story of Spartacus ought to be told on the basis of its reputation, could easily be leery of a retelling of the tale for a twenty-first century cable milieu addicted to grimdarkness, edgelordism and the equation of what is vile with what is "realistic." More consequential for a contemporary audience, however, is what we know more specifically about the production. If Sam Raimi has won a good deal of respect as a director working in certain popular genres, and even got some respect for a handling of more "serious" fare suggestive of unrealized potentials, the idea of him making an action-adventure-themed show set in the ancient world starring Lucy Lawless . . . well, I suppose most think less Hollywood classic and more Xena: Warrior Princess, a show beloved by its fans, but which (fairly or unfairly) few would regard as a very promising precedent for a serious treatment of this material, all as the grimdarkness of Xena's concluding season could seem in itself suggestive of the direction in which the new show would go, an expectation the show promptly confirmed when it started to air. Thus one had something many found at once silly and nihilistic, all as however much the "sex and violence" so much a part of that may be draws there are different ways to handle them, to different result. After all, it is not sex that sells but the sex-y, all as those selling it have to be careful not to kill its appeal by blending it with the un-sexy that can very quickly kill all interest--and as it happened the show's combining gut-wrenching violence with the brutality of social relations within this world of literal masters and slaves, and the decision to go thoroughly "modern" here with regard to gender politics and "representation," meant that there was a lot in this "pornography of cruelty" as the detractors had it that would make many a viewer change the channel in a hurry. And altogether this probably did much to limit the show to a cult rather than a general following.

The result is that STARZ's returning to the well with The House of Ashur seems that much more obviously a matter of Hollywood scraping the bottom of the barrel for even marginal successes it can prequel, sequel, reboot, remake and spin off in its desperate yet undeniably crass and shabby way as the folks in the C-Suites seize on anything and everything they can to make the attempt go over, not least the "alternate timeline" idea. As it happens the character of Ashur positioned at the center of this sequel died in the "original" Spartacus series (beheaded, so there is no room for the usual soap operatic nonsense about an implausible story about how he survived), but this is a parallel universe version where that never happened--reflecting how this gimmick has been so congenial to the schlockmeisters of Tinseltown that they are now willing to use it in "grounded" fare such as something they are calling an "historical drama."