Although the new Starz series, “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” may involve a lot of guys and gals running around and committing all sorts of swordplay, you should in no way take the fact that it’s executive produced by Robert G. Tapert to indicate that it will in any way resemble earlier Tapert productions like, say, “Hercules” or “Xena.” I mean, heck, if the warrior princess herself doesn’t see any similarities, then anything you think you’ve spotted is strictly a case of looking too hard to find something that isn’t there.

“It’s totally different to me,” said Lucy Lawless, who plays Lucretia on the show. “Completely different, tonally. The fighting, the technology, everything has changed so much. I don’t recognize the fights at all. The way they do them is foreign to me.”

At the very least, there’s one element inherent to Lawless’s new gig that, for better or worse, her former series did not possess: lots and lots of sex. Despite the incredibly graphic nature of the intercourse, Stephen K. DeKnight – creator of “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” – does not seem to be overly concerned about how audiences will react.

“Well, who doesn’t like sex?” he asks, quite rhetorically. “I mean, seriously, I think we’re all sexual beings, and back in the Roman times, it was a completely different idea about sex. It was much more open and free, and it was pre-Christian constraints. So we wanted to explore all that, quite frankly. It was very common to have sex with your slaves. It was extremely common. So we wanted to explore that, too. And part and parcel is the sensuality of the human experience, and we certainly didn’t want to shy away from that. Is it graphic? I personally don’t think it’s that graphic, but that’s me. I think it’s beautifully shot. There are some very steamy things. You know, it’s not pornographic in any way, and the sex scenes almost always come from a place of character. There’s always something going on. It’s not just ‘cue the funky music,’ and they start having sex. It’s not that. Somebody is always angling. It’s always about power. It’s always about love. It’s always about loss. Every sex scene has a purpose. It’s not just sex for sex’s sake.”

DeKnight described the series’ two distinct sides – one sexual, one violent – as going together like chocolate and peanut butter, and while he may have been kidding a bit with his Reese’s-inspired comparison, there’s a certain logic to his position. “It’s a violent time,” he said of the show’s era. “Much like their views on sex, the Roman views at the time on violence was you did not shy away from blood. Blood and death, it was part of being Roman. You embraced it. You liked to watch it. And also, just the sex and violence is part of the show, but if you’ve seen the first four or five, the plot lines become incredibly intricate. We really play with the idea that everybody wants something, everybody is after something, and everybody is against everybody else. Everyone is maneuvering, and it becomes very complicated and messy, and out of that comes blood…and often sex.”

Well, fair enough, then.

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Some people think that the life of a work-at-home entertainment writer is one of the most lax jobs out there, since the perception is generally is that all you do is sit around and watch DVDs, occasionally venture out of the house to see movies or concerts, and then sit in front of the computer and write about them. Okay, it’s a fair cop. But when you throw interviews into the mix, there’s a bit more work involved. First, you’ve got to get the interview (they aren’t always handed to you on a silver platter), then you’ve got to do the research to make sure that you can ask some halfway knowledgeable questions, and after you conduct the interview, let’s not forget that you’ve got to transcribe it, too. In other words, yes, there really is work involved…and when I went back and discovered that I’d done well over 130 interviews during the course of 2009, I suddenly realized why I’m so tired all the time.

For your reading enjoyment, I’ve pulled together a list of 100 of my favorite quotes from the various interviews I conducted for Premium Hollywood, Bullz-Eye, Popdose, and The Virginian-Pilot this year, along with the links to the original pieces where available. As you can see, I had some extremely interesting conversations in 2009. Let us all keep our fingers crossed that I’m able to chat with just as many fascinating individuals in 2010…

1. Pamela Adlon: “In the first season (of ‘Californication’), when we had the threesome with the nipple clamps, I was, like, ‘I don’t get this, I don’t know how you’re gonna do it.’ And then, all of a sudden, there’s a crane with a camera hanging over our heads, and you’re, like, ‘Okayyyyyyy. But how are you gonna sell this? How are you gonna make it work?’ And they ended up shooting it brilliantly, cutting it together, and it just all ended up working without me having to compromise my own personal morals.”

2. Jonathan Ames: “After my first novel, my mother said to me, ‘Why don’t you make your writing more funny? You’re so funny in person.’ Because my first novel was rather dark. And I don’t know, but something about what she said was true. ‘Yes, why don’t I?’ Maybe I was afraid to be funny in the writing. But since then, seven books later, almost everything I’ve done has a comedic edge to it.”

3. Ed Asner: “I loved journalism until the day my journalism teacher, a man I revered, came by my desk and said, ‘Are you planning on going into journalism?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘I wouldn’t.’ I said, ‘Well, why not?’ He said, ‘You can’t make a living.’”

4. Sean Astin: “When somebody brings up a movie (of mine) that I haven’t heard about in a long time, I feel like a 70-year-old pitcher at a bar somewhere, and somebody walks in and says, ‘Oh, my God, I was in St. Louis and I saw you. You pitched a shutout.’ It’s real. I really did do that, because someone today remembers it.”

5. Darryl Bell: “The legend of ‘Homeboys in Outer Space’ has become much more incendiary than the actual show. It’s funny how I usually challenge most people who talk about how much they disliked ‘Homeboys’ to name me five episodes. Most of them can’t, because they just bought into the ‘oh, it’s awful, just the title. Oh, it’s terrible.’ What’s interesting is that I had a great conversation with Chi McBride, who was doing ‘The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer,’ which, if you want to talk about in terms of the imagery of what was wrong, that show was much more infamous than ‘Homeboys.’ Yet it’s not remembered in the same way because the title didn’t grab you in the same way. I remember Chi pulled me aside and he was, like, ‘Look, everyone who is criticizing what you’re doing would take your job from you in two seconds. All of them. So all I can tell you is that this is one blip on both of our careers, and we are moving on.’â€�

6. Adam Campbell: “For some reason, people always pick on the British sensibility, and we always come across as stupid, but remember: we used to run this country!”

7. Nestor Carbonell: “Let me make this perfectly clear: I do not wear make-up, and I do not wear eye-liner. This is something I’ve had to deal with my whole life. I remember I was in college in Boston, I had a commercial agent, and they sent me out for some print commercial stuff. And they called me into the office and said, ‘Look, we called you in to talk to you because we just want you to know that…well, we don’t think you need to wear eyeliner.’ And I’m, like, ‘What?’ ‘Yeah, it’s okay, you don’t have to wear it for print ads.’ ‘No, I’m not wearing eyeliner!’ And I kept dabbing my eyes and saying, ‘Look! No eyeliner! I’m not wearing any!’�

8. Elaine Cassidy: “The last two days of shooting (’Harper’s Island’) was probably the most hardcore, the coldest anyone has ever been. It was like your head was freezing, and my motivation for most scenes was, ‘The minute this scene is over, I’m heading straight over to that heater to get warm.’â€�

9. Chris Cornell: “I started as a drummer, so I sort of took on singing duties by default. I had sung backgrounds and some lead vocals from behind the drums in different bands that I’d been in, and I’d gotten great responses for the songs I would sing. I really started pursuing the possibility of being a lead singer based on the fact that I was working a full-time restaurant job and then playing gigs at night, hauling drums around. One day, it just dawned on me that, ‘Hey, I could be in a band and be the singer, and it would be a lot easier!’â€�

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Back in January, I covered Starz’s panel on their upcoming series, “Spartacus,” and at that time, I freely acknowledged that I didn’t personally have much to say about the show because there wasn’t anything to see. I mean, nothing. All we had to work with were the assurances of the executive producers that it was going to be a hell of a show, which I responded to thusly:

Executive producer Rob Tapert describes it as “our reinterpretation of the famous Stanley Kubrick movie,� calling it “a hard-core, testosterone-driven action drama unlike anything on television right now� and “a totally R-rated, hard, hard show that still has all the things that you need in storylines but that delivers the action component that theatrical audiences expect from their entertainment.� Sounds great…but it would sound a lot more impressive if they actually had anything at all to show us or, indeed, had even cast Spartacus yet.

Well, it’s over six months later, and the premiere is “Spartacus” is still another six months away, but at least we’re finally making some headway. Hell, just hiring some actors would’ve been forward motion from where we were last time, but we actually got to see a clip from the show…and, better yet, it was a kick-ass, completely unedited version that had never been screened for anyone else. So suck it, Comic-Con!

First and foremost, Spartacus will be played by Andy Whitfield, an actor who’s virtually unknown outside of his native Australia (and, to look at his paltry list of credits, possibly isn’t even known very well when he’s at home), with Lucy Lawless and John Hannah playing the owners of a gladiator camp, and Peter Mensah serving as Doctore, a trainer of gladiators.

As you may already know, “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” is going to have a very unique look for television, though it’s similar in appearance and tone, not to mention subject matter, to a certain numerically-named film, a fact which executive producer Rob Tapert tackled headlong.

“Yes, ‘300′ had a particular look and style,” Tapert admitted. “Zack Snyder brought that hyper-realistic style to a period piece, you know. Certainly, ‘Sin City’ prior to that had been all digital backgrounds, and there’s other shows currently on television that have digital background, from ‘Blue’s Clues’ all the way through to ‘Sanctuary.’ So what ‘300′ did so well was make a great deal of money so everyone said, ‘Hey, the audience will accept that,’ and equally the drama played. So it was very easy to point to something and say, well, it worked in that style. Plus, having a digital environment and not having to have ultra-realistic backdrops and an arena like in ‘300,’ or in, like, ‘Gladiator,’ it allowed us to actually bring this to the screen. There was no way to do it without having the artifice, so to speak.”

As Tapert noted last year, this is a reinterpretation of the classic story presented within the 1960 Kubrick film, but there is most definitely a tribute to the man who played that version of Spartacus. At least, I think it’s a tribute.

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I thought about posting last night, but I’ve gotten into a rhythm this season with letting the episode marinate in my brain overnight and then posting on Saturday morning. I know a lot of people TiVo shows nowadays (myself included) and end up watching the episode later that night, the next day or the next week, so there isn’t a huge rush to get something up.

Was it a great finale? Absolutely. Was I blown away? Not entirely.

Let’s start at the beginning (which is always a good place to start) — more flashbacks of life on Caprica. Bill is thinking about retiring and entering the private sector, Roslin has a blind date with a former student, Lee gets to know Kara. Great, let’s move on.

Back in the future, Baltar’s vision tells him that he will “take mankind’s remnants and guide them to their end.” Last week, after watching him struggle with the decision in the hanger, I wondered whether or not Gaius would in fact volunteer to go along with the rescue mission. The truth is that it should have been obvious that he would. Creator Ronald D. Moore wasn’t about to take one of the main players out of the game in crunch time.

After an emotional scene between Roslin and Doc Coddle, Laura had a great line:

“Don’t spoil your image. Just light a cigarette and go and grumble.”

Then the planning began for the assault on the colony — that’s when the episode really got going. The final four move Sam to the CIC (more on this later) and Galactica prepares to jump.

Like just about every battle scene in the entire series, this one rocked. Galactica jumps in and immediately starts to get pummeled by the colony’s weapons. After the terrific rescue mission on New Caprica, the show had a lot to live up to, and once the birds were away and Bill ordered his crew to ram the colony, Moore and Co. had cleared the bar. It was very cool to see Lee leading a group of Centurions into the colony. Even when they’re on “our” side, they still scare the ever-loving crap out of me.

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The name of this episode was “Daybreak,” so it’s not surprising that the fleet turned a corner of sorts this week. Specifically, Bill finished mourning for the Galactica and made a major decision — that he would lead a rescue mission for Hera. This started when he saw that picture of Hera and Athena was left on the Galactica bulletin board, and I think he took it as a sign that he had to do something. We didn’t see Sam provide the location of the colony, but that’s the assumption.

I’m not clear on why we spent much of the episode back in Caprica City before the attack. The first scene was with Bill talking to someone about something that he did not want to do. After just meeting Gaius, Caprica Six met his elderly dad. She set him up in a nursing home, so maybe that’s how she earned Gaius’s trust, eventually leading to his betrayal of his fellow humans. We saw Kara and Lee’s first meeting, though she was his brother’s girlfriend at the time. And then there was Roslin — after losing her entire family in a car accident, she had a bit of a mental breakdown.

One of the last flashbacks was of a drunk Lee having an encounter with a pigeon.

What’s the point?

I have no idea.

Back in the present, Kara continues to work on the meaning of her song, even trying to turn it into some mathematical formula, but she’s not having much luck. Gaius pleads with Lee to give his “people” representation in the government and Lee asks him if he’s ever made a single selfless act in his life. Later on, when Bill asks for volunteers, it looks for a moment that Gaius is conflicted and may join them, but when we cut to the final shot of the hanger, I didn’t see where he was. My guess is that he’s ultimately going to stick with the fleet.

That’s about it. Not a whole hell of a lot happened this week, save for Bill’s decision to go after Hera. Based on the reconnaissance, it’s going to be tough to get close to the colony…

Next week should be interesting.

What did we learn this week?

Well, a while back, when Cavil mentioned that the humans hadn’t found the “colony” yet, he wasn’t referring to Earth. The Cylons do have a colony and that’s where Boomer took Hera. It appears that the final two (or is it three, as TV.com indicates?) episodes are going to involve some sort of a rescue attempt. It’s all about Hera. (And Kara.)

Speaking of Kara, Baltar tested the DNA from the dog tags and apparently discovered that she did in fact crash and burn on Earth. After the funeral, Baltar used this information about Kara to advance his own agenda. He announced that Starbuck is walking proof that there is an afterlife. (Of course, if that was the case, why don’t we see more “dead” people walking around?) Anyway, we learned once again that Baltar is a giant ass. For whatever reason, Kara took him into her confidence and he betrayed her. But really, what did she expect he’d do? (On a side note, Baltar did in fact try to make a move on Caprica Six, but he was shot down. I wonder if that’s the end of that storyline or if it will continue through the end of the series. I’m betting on the latter considering how the two are always together in the opera house dream.)

What else did we learn? It took a lot of liquor and a weird Jackson Pollock moment with the white paint, but Bill is finally able to give up on Galactica. He’s cynical about the fleet’s destiny and whatnot, but what else is there to do? If the more spiritual folks say that they need to go after Hera, why not do it? Isn’t that better than aimlessly drifting around space until you run out of resources?

Hera can project! I don’t know what this really means, but she and Boomer bonded over it. By the time they got to the colony, Boomer had grown attached to Hera and those crocodile tears at the end proved that she had a tough time handing the girl over to Cavil. By the way, did you hear Cavil say to Hera that she would soon have a lot of little playmates? How does he plan do accomplish that? Cavil also confirmed that Boomer sneaking Ellen off to the fleet was indeed just a ploy to kidnap Hera. It will be interesting to see if Boomer steps in and saves Hera from whatever Cavil has planned for her.

With Galactica being stripped for parts, the military personnel are going to move over to the Cylon basestar. The humans are justifiably skeptical of this, but do they really have a choice?

When this episode started, and Kara got into a conversation with some random dude in the bar, I was thinking — why are they introducing a new character at this point in the series?

My “twist-dar” went off when they failed to show her dad’s face in her flashbacks, and it really went off when he lit up a cigarette (after she reminisced about the “smell of tobacco” earlier in the episode). Then the meaning of Hera’s drawing was revealed and suddenly Kara and her “dad” were playing the “Battlestar Galactica” version of “All Along the Watchtower.”

Kara’s trip plodded along, but it was still quite intense, because the nature of her existence is still one of the big questions yet to be answered. This mellowness provided a nice balance to what was going on elsewhere on the ship, as the Chief made a bad, bad decision by trusting Boomer again. Roslin’s demeanor towards Tyrol was unnecessarily harsh, and she bears some responsibility for his actions. Boomer is (mostly) evil, a fact confirmed by her sexual encounter with Helo right in front of Athena. That has to be a tough pill for the Chief to swallow — he breaks her out of the brig and the first guy she screws is Helo? Ouch.

The scene where Boomer made her escape was one of the most nail-biting of the entire series. It was clear that the Chief didn’t know Hera was in the trunk because Boomer had to tell him to “be careful” with it. Still, he’s a dope for falling for her act again. Way to go, Chief.

So now Galactica has a hole in the side of the ship, and after weeks of intimating that the old girl was on her last legs, the ship is truly falling apart. Cavil has (or will have) Hera, and there are only three episodes left. We still need to find out the truth about Kara and the fleet needs to find some sort of home. They wouldn’t end the series with the fleet just drifting aimlessly in space…would they?

After last week’s jam-packed episode, the series downshifted a bit, delving into the minutiae (i.e. the food shortage) that played such a prominent role in the first two seasons. While Baltar and Paula were arguing about food, I was wondering if this was really how we were going to spend the last five episodes. This detail-oriented stuff was interesting when the show was finding its feet, but with all that has happened, it just feels trivial. The major plot points to come out of Baltar’s storyline is that Caprica Six is back in his head (yay!) and that he managed to convince Bill to give him a trunk load of guns to defend their food stock. (I’ll admit that it was funny to see how Baltar picked the prettiest mom to help, resulting in a major eye-roll from Paula. Some things never change.)

It was nice of Boomer to bring Ellen back to the fleet, but their arrival has all sorts of consequences. First and foremost, Ellen is still an annoying bitch. When she finds out that Tigh and Caprica Six are expecting, it throws her into a jealous rage and she tries to manipulate the situation to get back into Saul’s arms. The plan may have worked too, as it could have been the stress of Ellen’s return that sent Caprica’s pregnancy off the rails. Now that the baby is out of the picture, I’d expect Tigh and Ellen to pick up where they left off. (Baltar and Caprica Six may too, for that matter.)

Wowsers. With Sam doing his little I’ve-got-a-lot-to-tell-you bit, this had to be one of the most informative episodes of the entire series. Let me run down what I think we know at this point…

- Those that are still holding out hope that Ellen wasn’t the fifth Cylon can stop – she is. She was resurrected 18 months ago and is considered to be the “mother� of all the skinjobs. The Ones (or one one in particular) seem to have a major problem with the fact that she made them (somewhat) human. By the end of the episode, the Ones were ready to open up her brain to find the secret of resurrection, but Boomer snuck her off to parts unknown. I’m not clear on when this escape coincides with current events, so if anyone has a clue, be sure to comment.

- Ellen still likes to drink, even after resurrection.

- The final five were living on Earth and they reinvented resurrection. Tyrol was credited for having done a ton of work towards this end, but Ellen was the one that made the final leap to make resurrection possible again. For whatever reason, they had a ship in orbit, waiting for Earth to be destroyed. (And, as far as I know, we still don’t know why Earth was destroyed.) The Cylons living on Earth were able to procreate, which is why they did away with resurrection in the first place. I believe that the implication is that all Earthlings are actually Cylons. That’s good to know.

- Once Earth was destroyed, the final five started off to the 12 colonies to warn them about creating Cylons (and/or treating them badly). They were not able to make jumps, so the travel was very slow, which is what accounts for the 2,000-year difference between Earth’s destruction and when the fleet fled the colonies.

Well, with only seven episodes left, we knew that the Gaeta/Zarek coup couldn’t last too long. By the end of the episode, it looks like this storyline is wrapped up nice and neat with a little bow. The Gaeta/Zarek alliance started to splinter when the latter made the executive decision to murder the entire quorum. At that point, Gaeta realized that Zarek was a power-hungry psychopath that did not have the best interests of the fleet at heart. By the time that the Admiral was rescued and on his way to the CIC, Gaeta had already seen the writing on the wall. The coup was over. (Presumably, Gaeta and/or Zarek gave the Admiral the coordinates for the 25 ships that jumped away so that they could re-join the fleet. That’s going to make for some awkward moments in the halls!)

Romo Lampkin made a surprise appearance as the Admiral’s counsel. I’ve always thought there is more to him that meets the eye, and when he used a pen to kill his captor, it was clear that he’s no stranger to physical confrontation. Once the soldier was down, Lampkin searched his pockets for his sunglasses. Classic.

I don’t think that we saw Lampkin after he grudgingly agreed to help Starbuck get Anders to sick bay. His decision to help might have saved Sam’s life and in turn may change the fate of the fleet. Another minor character, Aaron, was instrumental in the coup’s failure. First, he let Tyrol escape (which eventually led to Tyrol disabling the FTL drives) and he told Starbuck and Lee that they were about to execute the Admiral. Without Aaron’s crisis of conscience, the coup might have succeeded.

Speaking of Tyrol, he saw some black marks in the engine room. I’m not sure what it was all about, but don’t be surprised if it comes up again in a future episode.

The last thing I want to discuss relates to the “scenes from next week,” which CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS for those still wondering about the true identity of the final Cylon. So stop reading if you don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Are they gone? Good.

Well, if we’re to believe the scenes from next week, Ellen is indeed the final Cylon. They refer to her as the final Cylon, show her coming back to life (I thought the hub was destroyed?) and they say that she “knows everything.” I’m still bummed that she’s the final Cylon — I always found the character annoying as hell, but hey, it is what it is, right?

Also, I wanted to share this excerpt from an interview with Aaron Douglas (who plays Tyrol) from last October:

“The four that were revealed at the end of season 3 are what they are, but they’re one-offs,” he points out. “They’re the original Cylons. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, when there were 13 colonies on Kobol, 12 went that way and one went that way to find Earth – or create an Earth – and that colony was actually Cylons. They’re individuals, there’s no multiple models. The seven that we know are a different kind of Cylon that came much later. They’re probably ten, 20 years old, born out of the metal machines that fought back 40 years ago in the Cylon wars of the 12 colonies. So they’re essentially like the gods. And we were on the new Earth, and destroyed that and came back to the 12 colonies to rejoin humanity to find out the cycle of time.”

We knew that the bones on Earth were 100% Cylon, but Douglas is confirming that there were never any humans there to begin with. The 13th colony was Cylon and presumably, the other 12 colonies knew that when they parted ways.

Or did they?

Hmm.