I find myself agreeing with every word of the previous reviewer. This is unquestionably the greatest television adaptation of a book ever created, of one of the greatest books ever written.

Everything from the casting, the screenplay, to the locations and the cinematography is of the very highest calibre.

Perhaps the greatest achievement is the way in which the story is allowed to develop without any apparent necessity for brevity or 'condensing' of plot-line displayed by so many adaptations.

Simply stunning.

A beautiful melancholy story about the souls of men. Also it has the most amazing production values, from the filming in venice, to the shots aboard ship to the sheer numbers of extras. It looks absolutely stunning. The acting is superb - Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews. It really captures the era and the class perfectly. The best description is that of Waugh himself: "the operation of divine grace upon a group of diverse but closely connected characters", and in a note "I am writing a very beautiful book, to bring tears, about very rich, beautiful, high born people who live in palaces and have no troubles except what they make themselves and those are mainly the demons of sex and drink which, after all, are easy to bear as troubles go nowadays." It is the realisation of these themes in this series that makes me believe it is the greatest piece of television ever.