Recent television

I never get the time to watch television. With a sky box booked up with Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, still to watch on DVD I’ve got Tin Man (from a couple of Christmas’ ago), The Pacific, Dexter series 5, House series 6 and Spartacus Gods of the Arena, I have a problem I wonder if other writers face: would you rather be writing or watching someone else’s work? I feel the same about a blog: what would I rather do? Write a blog or perfect a script?

Answers on a postcard to…

Spartacus

I came into Spartacus a few years ago, one night when returning from the gym. The sight of Leucretia sat in a milk bath….HANG ON, THAT’S XENA!!!! Or is it D’anna Biers? It got my attention especially considering the line that followed.

Let me digress…

Ok, if you don’t know (and I’m not so blase as to believe everyone watches the same television programmes) Spartacus re-tells the story of the slave rebellion, with the first season telling how he ends up a slave in the first place, is purchased to fight as a Gladiator, and wins the respect of his peers in the victories he scores in the arena.

That was about as sanitized as I get considering the show is wall to wall slow motion violence, green screen cartoon blood spray, excessive full frontal nudity and sex…which amusingly provides the only taboo. Yes, you see full frontal shots of men AND women from a mid-distant camera angle but never close up, and you never see penetrative sex in all it’s detail.

So back to this line…

(The story so far) Leucretia is the mistress of the Gladiator school / house (Domina) and she doesn’t like Spartacus. To control him, she tries to put a slave girl in his bed which, being a hero figure and man we trust, he refuses…for that and other reasons I’m not going to say because it would spoil the show if you haven’t seen it yet. When slave girl returns to Domina and reports failure, slave girl is inspected by Domina to make sure she is to all intents and purposes an “attractive, fully formed woman” and then threatened.

I’m not going to repeat it verbatim but it’s general intent and meaning can be deduced by the audience to read “if you don’t end up in his bed, you’re getting stabbed somewhere painful”

The actual use of language would make your mother blush and she wouldn’t be proud you were watching such a program.

So why mention it at all?

Because it’s surprisingly fun! It’s well scripted, and the language itself is worthy of note because- get this- the dialogue is written in mock-translated latin!

You’ll never hear “yes” or “no” when they can use “that is so” or “I shall see it done”