TV Guide has a fantastic article on Spartacus which looks at the show and also looks at the two stars of the show Andy Whitfield and Lucy Lawless.
Flesh & Blood - Spartacus Blood and Sand TV Guide 18-24 January 2010
Starz whips up the sex and violence for Spartacus, a graphic adaptation of the Roman slave myth.
A 2,000-year-old dead guy is about to change the future of television. Spartacus: Blood and Sand—the new Starz show about the famed Thracian rebel who led a revolt of 120,000 slaves against the Roman Empire—is the first series ever to be presented in the graphic-novel style that made the film "300" a worldwide box-office smash. That means violence and bloodshed galore—slashed throats, skin ripped from skulls, entire bodies sliced in half like overripe honeydews— all of it artfully done in balletic slo-mo, along with frontally nude gladiators, no-imagination-necessary sex scenes and wildly foul language. (We're talking enough C-words and F-bombs to make David Mamet faint.)
Already green-lit for a second season before it hits the air, Spartacus is so visually dazzling and complex that each episode requires 120 days for the editing and effects alone—in other words, this is the kind of stuff you'd pay to see at your multiplex. It's intended to shock and awe and shock some more, and the show's execs make no bones about it. "It was always our goal to push the boundaries of what's possible on TV, and I think we even surprised ourselves," says creator Steven DeKnight {Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Adds executive producer Rob Tapert (Xena: Warrior Princess): "Most television is not about setting a new bar. It's about playing it safe. Starz was willing to go out on the ledge and take the leap with us, without all the feedback and silly note-giving. It's unprecedented, really."