You could say I’m a superfan of the Starz series Spartacus. I watched every season, from Blood and Sand with star Andy Whitfield, to the fourth and final season, War of the Damned, with Liam McIntyre who replaced Whitfield after his tragic death. Ten years after the show’s end, it’s back with Spartacus: House of Ashur, and at its San Diego Comic-Con panel a teaser was released for the miniseries that takes place in a “What If? ” scenario.
Spartacus: House of Ashur asks the question, what if that scheming Ashur, played by Nick E. Tarabay, hadn’t got his head chopped off at the end of season three. If Ashur had lived, what awful schemes might he have come up with to ruin the lives of others? It’s an interesting idea to keep the series alive and bring back one of its most popular characters.
Personally, I’d rather Spartacus return in a more canonical way, but that’s just me.
Tarabay returns as Ashur, joined by Graham McTavish, Tenika Davis, Ivana Baquero, Jamaica Vaughan, Jordi Webber, Claudia Black, India Shaw-Smith, Cameron Rhodes, and Leigh Gill.
Show creator Steven S. DeKnight returns as showrunner and exec-producer, which should make fans of Spartacus very happy. DeKnight has been instrumental to every season and really kept it alive when it could’ve easily gone away early on.
SYNOPSIS: House of Ashur will be a history-bending, erotic, thrilling, roller-coaster experience that builds on everything that made the original series a colossal hit. The series poses the question: what if Ashur (Nick Tarabay), hadn’t died on Mount Vesuvius at the end of Spartacus: Vengeance? And what if he had been gifted the gladiator school once owned by Batiatus in return for aiding the Romans in killing Spartacus and putting an end to the slave rebellion?
Starz has yet to give House of Ashur a release date, but it’s expected to arrive in the winter. That is pretty frustrating because they’ve been hyping it up for what feels like forever.
