Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This will be a spoiler free review of the series, so I will refrain from writing about characters unless absolutely necessary. I will also describe the box set.The review stars will encompass the series as well as the box set and special features. I stumbled upon spartacus when the first season was beginning, and from then on, the series held my attention as one of the greatest television series I have ever seen. I will get one thing out of the way first. The first episode is pretty mediocre in my opinion. It tries too hard to be like the movie "300" and because of the budget, it's not up to the level of Hollywood films. So as a precaution, please do not expect te first episode to be like the rest of the series. Season 1, called "Blood and Sand", tells the story of spartacus, played by the late Andy Whitfield, from his journey of Thracian soldier to legend of the arena. After the dismal first episode, the rest of the season is an awesome ride to vengeance filled with tons of violence and sex. Besides that, the acting is top notch and all the characters are awesome and you will more than likely develop and attachment to them. Following "Blood and Sand," the prequel season, "Gods of the Arena," begins. Tragedy befell the spartacus series with the sudden illness of Andy Whitfield being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Because of this, the series decided to give backstory by way of prequel telling the story of Spartacus' Roman owner, Batiatus and his wife Lucretia. The prequel deals with Batiatus' rise from lowly owner of gladiators to the man we see in "Blood and Sand." There are only 6 episodes for this season but every single one is awesome and moves the story at a great pace. Besides Batiatus, we also see the introduction of a new character, the Celtic gladiator, Gannicus. Andy Whitfield was no longer able to play the character because of his illness and sadly, Andy passed away from the cancer. Following "Gods," we go back to the current time with season 3, called "Vengeance." We once again follow the titular character, now played by Liam McIntyre. Andy was a great spartacus and fortunately, Liam makes the role his own and the season does not falter. We follow the ex gladiator and his band of rebels as they free more slaves and face the Roman Praetor called Glaber. The season is awesome as the previous seasons have been and sets up the last season for an amazing end. The last and final season is "War of the Damned," and for me this is probably the best season of the entire series. Spartacus' group of rebels has grown to an incredible army and we now face the inevitable clash between the powerful Roman legions and the courageous band of rebels. On the Roman side we have Marcus Crassus and also an unexpected but awesome appearance from arguably the most famous person in Ancient Roman history. This last season is an incredible thrill ride and the series ends with some of the greatest large scale fight scenes I have ever seen. I will also get it out of the way and say that this is the first time I have ever cried at the end of an episode. The final episode is a tearjerker and it reminded me of how far the rebels came for the reason of freedom. The entire series is amazing and if I was to only review the series itself, it would get a full 5 stars. On to the special features. All the special features from the previous stand alone season blu rays are here as well a few extras. I haven't seen all of them but I believe it gives more bang for your buck. The box set itself is pretty crappy. I expected all the seasons to be separated in their own mini boxes but all of them are basically crammed into a mini booklet almost like a little photo album. If you look at other box sets, especially the breaking bad barrel, this would look like someone found empty cardboard and used that to put all the discs in. As a whole, this complete series is great and if you haven't watched the series or are a fan, I would definitely recommend this.