Knowing how it ends doesn't diminish its power rather it comes loaded with a crushing inevitability. When Whitfield's replacement, Liam McIntyre, joined the show for series three, Vengeance, and the final War of the Damned, his Spartacus was suitably more sullen, less cocky, still as unrelentingly hateful of the Romans as before, but bearing the weight of a man who was fighting not just for revenge of his murdered wife, but for freedom for all.
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John Hannah's furiously ambitious Batiatus, Lucy Lawless as his equally ruthless wife Lucretia, Manu Bennett's Crixus the undefeated Gaul, Dustin Clare's swaggering gladiator Gannicus, Nick Tarabay's stupendously duplicitous Ashur: the show was full of memorable characters that it had no worries about killing off (it's no surprise that almost everyone dies, that's the kind of spoiler that is usually taught in schools). While he was ill, after season one (Blood and Sand), a short prequel series ( Gods of the Arena) kept the show going and expanded the back-story of the many supporting characters, turning the show into more of an ensemble piece.
It also tragically lost its Spartacus when cancer took lead Andy Whitfield. The always entertaining dialogue was as stylised as the action: "You scale a mountain of ifs and I would add to its peak." It was up to you to get used to it if you did, you'd be hooked on a show that constantly delivered the goods. Looking back on those introductory episodes now the show has finished on Sky 1, they are really not that different from what followed Spartacus started with everything turned up to 11 and never flagged. I t's commonly thought that this visceral, swaggering show fumbled its start, presenting opening episodes so full of sex and violence that many (mostly the sort of killjoys who find make-believe sex and violence automatically unpalatable) were unable to see anything else, or accept the context in which such strong elements were presented.