***1/2 – Having the word ‘sand’ in the title of this Starz network series seems arbitrary. I can see why they tossed ‘blood’ in there – as this is extraordinarily bloody – but I don’t quite see why the sand got such high billing. They might as well have called this “Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Metal and Titties and More Blood and Water and Trees and Cocks and a Whole Shitload of Blood”. Anyway, what I’m getting at here is that this is a highly sensationalized sort of show, with every aspect that one could find some offense with being taken to an absolute TV extreme, from blood to sex to language and more. Not an episode goes by that doesn’t feature people having limbs or heads chopped off and blood flying everywhere, or the words ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’ being yelled several times, or loads of bouncing boobies and naked women licking each other. I’m not saying that any or all of these things are bad, just that having them so much and so often is sort of overload. It does make for a very visually compelling spectacle, though, kind of like the gladiatorial games that are portrayed. It has a pretty decent storyline to it, and a lot of the characters are interesting – not to mention played well by the actors – which makes this sort of like a bloodier “Deadwood” with more nudity that doesn’t have quite the same quality of dialogue. It’s worth watching, though.
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