Steven was at the TCA Spartacus Panel all on his lonesome while the actors are back in New Zealand filming Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. Who better to promote Sparty when the actors are not around but Steven DeKnight:

Here's a rundown of some of the news from the event:

At today's Starz TCA press session, SPARTACUS creator and executive producer Steven S. DeKnight spoke about why Lucy Lawless will return as Lucretiain Season Two, even though the plan was to kill her off.

"The original plan was to kill Lucy at the end of the season," says DeKnight. "We had John Hannah and Lucy for one season. Lucy was having such a great time, there was interest in bringing her back. I got a call from [producer] Rob Tapert saying Starz called and 'they would really like Lucy to come back' and she wants to come back. I said 'absolutely not, she has to die' and then I called him back saying 'I have an idea.' So Lucy will be back in Season Two. Where the story goes with her, is something special. I’m excited about that."
source: iF Magazine

The idea of a standalone two-hour show didn't go over that
well, but after some back-and-forth with Tapert and Starz, they settled on six hours -- "the bed was just right," as DeKnight puts it. "We're thrilled to be able to go back and tell a lot of the things you hear about in Season 1," he adds. "Little one-liners, like when Peter Mensah [Oenomaus] mentions his wife in one line -- now we've built an entire story around that."Season 2 of "Spartacus" is set to begin filming in November, pretty much right after "Gods of the Arena" wraps. Starz hasn't set an airdate yet.
Source: wonderwall