MovieChat Forums > Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (2011) Discussion > It's truly unfortunate that

It's truly unfortunate that

posted 11 years ago by tbirum
7 replies | jump to latest

It's truly unfortunate that this show will never see the light of day on syndicated television.

The show The Sopranos was an AMAZING show, and even though it was filled with sex violence and vulgar language, the show was still able to be aired on re-run in syndication on other networks due in part to high quality editing, a blur spot here a word dub there and miniscule scene shortening made The Sopranos highly entertaining even though it had been edited for television. Basically they were able to show 95% of everything on regular tv that they would in the HBO version with the simple editing that I mentioned above. I've watch The Sopranos in both the edited for tv and HBO versions and found them both to be AMAZING.
The Spartacus series however cannot and should not ever appear on syndicated tv due to the fact that the amount of editing would be sooooooo immense that it would make the show completely unwatchable.

The amount of:
Blood
Gore
Graphic Nudity
Graphic depiction of sexual acts
Vulgar language
Would strip the show down from a average run time of around 54 minutes to around 30 minutes lol
While Spartacus GOTA/B&S/VENG/WOTD Did not rely on all of the for-mentioned content to tell a gripping story and for that matter deliver gripping television, when you consider the time period,, the culture,,the subject matter (Gladiators/War/Slavery/Revenge) Trying to have a reasonably accurate portrayal of Ancient Rome without excessive amounts of the above mentioned would not translate well at all.
While HBO is a pretty popular premium network, STARZ is not nearly as popular and therefore not nearly as many people will have even heard of this series and so unless they hear other people talking about it or have watched the series ROME and are looking for something similar then they will unlikely ever see this AMAZING series.
They can watch it on Netflix,, or rent it from places like blockbuster and other video rental places, but unless they know about the show they will never even know of it's existence.
Now the show is definitely not for everyone, some people will be put off by the excessive blood/violence/sex/nudity/vulgarity/man on man/woman on woman scenes but for those of us who can handle what this show brings to the table it really is a shame that so many of us who would enjoy the show will never know it exists due to it never showing up in syndication.
People who enjoy Riveting television and great story telling instead are subjected to re-runs of SO CALLED reality tv *beep* and re-make shows like 90210 blah blah blah,, not that i watch any of that crap,,but it is getting harder and harder to find quality shows on tv,, I'll go into a great depression when my BELOVED Breaking Bad finishes later this year,
(wipes away a single tear)

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Starwarsfan777 10 years ago

due in part to high quality editing, a blur spot here a word dub there and miniscule scene shortening

What sort of police state do you live in that requires such USSR style censorship?

[–] tbirum 10 years ago

Its called the FCC
look it up.

[–] m_mayhem 10 years ago

The version airing on syfy is quite entertaining and they've managed to keep the one hour format.

Victory is Mine!!!

[–] Starwarsfan777 10 years ago

So much for the land of the free.

[–] tbirum 10 years ago

You can watch hardcore porn on tv, its just that you would have to watch it on a premium channel network, or Pay per view.
But on regular cable tv they don't allow female or male nudity to be shown, unless it is at 12 am or later in most situations.

But you compare the freedoms in the US compared to most of the world,,,yes we are the land of the free.
Freedom does not mean do what ever you want when ever you want to whom ever you want, we like all countries have rules and laws.
There is not a country on earth where their are no rules.
I would put the amount of freedom we have here in the US up against any other country in the world.

[–] Poochini_Barkey_Bark 10 years ago

I dont have cable and would never have heard of spartacus but for looking at imdb.com and seeing people talk it up. My public library consortium has all four seasons. Love it so much that I have seen the entire thing at least 6 times. And getting to see it all at once was fun.