Showrunner Steven S. DeKnight returns to the Roman era with Spartacus: House of Ashur. The show is an alternative history set in the same world, with a minor villainous character from the original show resurrected and rewarded with a gladiator school by his patron. Can the new show live up to the extremes of nudity and violence that have made the original such a winner on streaming? Or has yet another great show had its USP sanitised away?
Starz
1 episode of 10 seen
Starz’s Spartacus series retold the story of the gladiator who led an army of freed slaves against Rome. The very idea was sacrilegious to many, given the reverence for the Stanley Kubrick/Kirk Douglas 1960 original.
The series was executed in the style of Zack Snyder’s 300 and painted a bloody picture of a will-to-power world where might was right and there was no justice for the impoverished majority. It won itself almost immediate goodwill with its sheer commitment to being as extreme as a show could be, just shy of being a snuff movie filled with hardcore porn. Can such a show possibly return unaltered in a vastly more conservative 2025?
It was the kind of show you felt sick after watching, as it didn’t flinch from showing the effects of gutting a man with a sharpened piece of rusty steel. The image of fresh corpses dragged from the arena with a meat hook is not one the viewer will forget.
However, it wasn’t merely a mindless video nasty. It was also a brilliantly written world of intrigue, scheming and violent one-upmanship. Never had the Roman Empire been depicted in such seductive and dystopian terms. Everyone spoke with deliberately stylised speech; the combination of word and image left the viewer with the sense the showrunners committed to a unique vision in a notoriously noncommittal industry. The show had signature authorial style.
The makers won more goodwill when it was revealed the original star – Andy Whitfield – had stage four cancer, and they shot a prequel series delaying the need for him to be on set. Sadly, he died, aged 38.
The two series that remained – once recast – went on to push the anti-slavery message. It was also riotously entertaining and brilliantly plotted. Yet, it also built sympathy for the characters, especially those who started out as little more than violent beasts and died as dignified free men. Of course, the show’s ending was inevitable: the slave army crucified along the Appian Way. The skill was how it got the characters and the audience there. The final battle memorably showed how to defeat an unbeatable gladiator in single combat and still managed to show his crucifixion as his imagined public triumph. Such flourishes show how the series rose above Kubrick’s celebrated ending.
Was the show just gore-heavy softcore pornography? No – it was a highly intelligent and empathetic story disguised as trash, deliberately combining sensationalism with excellent storytelling to invoke the world and the stakes. It succeeded to such a unique degree that DeKnight kicked the sands of literal exploitation cinema in the face of the previously unassailable Stanley Kubrick. The show was raw. It wasn’t an open wound – it was a severed artery. Unlike his characters, he took on the might of Rome and won. The question in 2025 is whether he can do it again.
In the first episode (of ten) of Spartacus: House of Ashur, the newly minted title character has saved Crassus – the richest and most powerful man in the empire – from Spartacus and his army, and is given the gladiator school where the story started as his reward.
In a fit of pique, and after a speech mocking those glorifying the gladiators in previous shows, Ashur beats his best prospect to death with a broken wine jug. Hubris, of course, as this proves his undoing later, when he manages to gain his ludus admittance to the gladiatorial games but can only field a second-rate man. That gladiator speaks of Spartacus-like murder and rebellion and dies violently, mocked by the powers of the town and pitied against three – intentionally hilarious – dwarves. Ashur decides he needs to stage a shocking affront to public decency to gain the attention he deserves. He takes possession of a Nubian slave after witnessing her throwing Roman soldiers around like rag dolls and plans to pit her against men in the arena.
Ashur states such controversy will attract a new audience. For Starz’s sake, it is hoped he is correct. Dwarves played for comedy and a superhumanly strong woman feel suspiciously like a studio mandate to broaden the show’s demographic appeal. And that’s a proven way to alienate your core audience.
Where will the season take the story? The gods were not known for resurrecting men out of pity. Is this to be the story of Ashur’s ignoble fall or the glory of his rise? Either is fine, but regardless of the narrative direction, Starz’s ‘We’re all adults here’ banner is hopefully a mission statement – giving an inch on tone and content will tank its prospects faster than facing those dwarves in the arena.
3/5 Were we not entertained? The first episode of Spartacus: House of Ashur can’t be faulted on technical execution but wobbles on brand fidelity. Accepting time will have changed the tone, and absent the revenge/rebellion plot, the series premiere sets a cautiously familiar direction. Starz… don’t screw this up.
Lee Russell Wilkes 