9/10 vs. 5/10Having read so many positive reviews, I very much wanted to like I, Claudius.I appreciate their efforts, the costumes, and sets...but....eeeeh. I've enjoyed elementary school bands and high school plays more. Much more.The pacing is slow, and the performances remind me the pompous Jon Lovitz character on Saturday Night Live.... "I"m acting!!".I want the hour of my life back spent screening episode 1.

There's a rather infamous saying which states, "Fork on the left, spoon on the right, knife in the back", and while I cannot attribute it to its creator, it very easily could have been said by a member of the royal family of the Claudians who were the earliest Roman emperors and certainly as evil as anybody in power ever could be. Yes, there are some good Claudians, but other than a few of the women in that family, there were very few. These women are as power-hungry as the men and many of them use their womanly wiles to get what they want. Ambition can destroy, and certainly, it drives wives and mothers to madness to do things that make them cringe in that part of their brain that tells them right from wrong. Even the mother of the nation, Livia (Sian Phillips), has two sides to her, showing regret from her very first on-screen poisoning (of her son's rival), and dripping subtle tears when her everlasting ambition brings her to go after the man she has loved for more than 50 years.Livia is an unforgettable woman, leering defiantly into the camera as the off-screen narration by Sir Derek Jacobi's title character reveals her to be always plotting, planning the demise of anybody who stands in the way of her goals. Those goals? To keep the Roman republic from returning and to get her son Tiberius (George Baker) on the throne of Rome at all costs. She will kill her own flesh and blood in order to do so, yet isn't above referring to her own great-grandson Caligula as a monster because of a plot he conceived as a child to destroy his own father. Aging from her 40's to her 80's, Sian's Livia never stops her evil schemes, yet you can feel that underneath her plotting, she's secretly regretting what she has to do, as if some compelling demon is demanding she do what she does. Why does she want to be a goddess? It could be ego, but mainly it is because she fears her damnation for what she had to do.Livia is married to the outwardly wise but inwardly naive Augustus (Brian Blessed) whose morals triple those of his wife. He can't stand Tiberius, but Livia's manipulations will be the destiny of the destruction of the empire she so devotedly craves. The death of her son Drucus brings to Rome his wife Antonia (the amazing Margaret Tyzack), a very moral woman torn between her ideals and her disgust with son Claudius's shortcomings. Livia and her daughter-in-law couldn't be any more different, but a shocking plot development has the emotionally destroyed Antonia to take measures against a daughter she considers morally reprehensible. There's not a chance for a reconciliation between mother and son, but the hints of an understanding are obviously there which makes their relationship seemingly come full circle.There is great detail put into the creation of George Baker's Tiberius, especially in a scene where he reveals to his beloved brother his own self-hatred and his fears of becoming as evil as their mother. When the evils do occur, his whole appearance changes, not just through age, but in an almost Dorian Gray like transformation. Check out his head as he ages; It almost appears as if there are holes there which get more disgusting as his lust and evil becomes more vicious. Baker still allows the conflicted side of Tiberius to shine through, although his final scene is more comical even though his demise is truly malevolent. John Hurt's Caligula isn't perhaps as menacing as Malcolm McDowall's in the X-rated version of his story, but he's certainly mad as a hatter, foul beyond words. He even gets to do a drag number, memorable in the story because it introduces the seemingly sweet Messalina (Sheila White who resembles a young Susan Sarandon) who dominates the last quarter of the mini-series as she becomes Claudius's third wife and as notoriously evil as Livia. Her demise is up there with some of the scariest ends of villains in horror movies, and fans of the 1954 epic "Demetrius and the Gladiators" certainly won't confuse her with Susan Hayward's version of Messalina. This version of the character is a very immature girl who felt simply by being the emperor's wife (whether sleeping with him or not), she had the right to live as she chose, even if it was outwardly evil and certainly not hidden like Livia's. By the time you get to Claudius's final days with his obviously evil last wife Agrippinilla (Barbara Young), you are wondering if other than Claudius's mother and a few assorted others if there were any women in Rome who didn't put poison on their grocery list. For a continuation of Agrippinilla's story, check out "Nero's Mistress" with Gloria Swanson playing that part. Such familiar faces as Patrick Stewart and Simon MacCorkindale also pop up, with Stewart the ultra-evil Serjanus who plots against Emperor Tiberius, and gleefully plots the death of his princess lover's husband. The scene where the two schemers stand over the dying man, basically gloating, is filled with sinister undercurrents, and Stewart's sexuality is overwhelmingly lustful. This is a mini-series you really do not want to rush through; It is so literally brilliant that all the murder, mayhem and lustful undertones can best be enjoyed in small doses. If "Upstairs, Downstairs" and "Elizabeth R" put British television on the map with American audiences, it is "I Claudius" which cemented its place in American audiences' minds. This is one TV series which is worth watching again and again, because being so rich in details, there is much more to pick up with each viewing.

History? Only the imperial machinations around the throne. Drama? Plotting and counter-plotting spoken around a room. Acting? It's only great if you're impressed by good posture and enunciation. (I was impressed by this Livia, her steely determinism)No, history for me to be effective in a lasting sense has to surround the lived atmosphere. This is stagebound artifice around the supposed events. There's no life here, only staging about staging. It's a Roman Days of Our Lives with the only lofty difference that the actors impersonate historical persons and the same tempestuous games about power are enacted in costume and sandals.

"I, Claudius" was the most tedious TV series of my childhood. It promised a lot, and delivered nothing, to satisfy my childhood expectations. No land battles, no naval clashes, no chariot races, not even a sword fight, for Mars' sake! In fact, you didn't even get to see the sky! It was a show in which people dressed like Romans moved about indoors, talked, laughed, sometimes screamed and sometimes got killed in dramatic scenes that lasted only 5 to 10 seconds, and then moved and talked more. Yet, this BBC production, set in the early decades of Roman Empire, had my parents, elder siblings and our relatives and neighbours, most of whom were from Kurdish country-side, glued to their television sets week after week, and talking about the characters and plot twists day after day.For the next thirty years, each time I heard about "I, Claudius", I was torn between the almost traumatic claustrophobia that the series left on my memory and the ever growing curiosity to find out the story that enthralled my childhood elders. In the last fifteen years, I hired "I, Claudius" from the video store twice, and returned them after watching only the first 15 minutes, still unimpressed.Then, it happened. Three weeks ago, bereft of choice in the video store, I again hired the DVDs, promising myself that I'd watch no less than the first hour, no matter what. Well, I ended up watching the 650 minute saga three times, back to back in nine days. I watched nothing else on TV for nine days; no news, no sport, no music clip. It was "I, Claudius" and me; I was happy. I even signed up to IMDb to write about it.The series showcases the mother of all internal family conflicts. The Roman Empire features like a family business that the dynasty is quarreling over. If you are not a 'fool' like Claudius, you are either killed or banished. Power kills, and absolute power... well, you know what it does. By the time young Marcellus stands up in the Arena and says "Let the games begin!" (at around 30-minute mark), you know you'll be glued to the TV for a long time, and say, "What a story!" at the end.This is TV at its best. The story, the script, acting, direction, camera angles, sets, costumes, they are all flawless. Close up shots of the faces are unmatched except perhaps by those in Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns. The series is teeming with memorable quotes (Augustus to an orator: "What gifts you Greeks have"; Tiberius about her mother Livia: "They say a snake bit her once and died"; Tiberius' astrologer: "Excellent! I knew it. It's all here. The chart doesn't lie." Claudius to Caligula: "You set the standard of sanity for the whole world"). There are many laugh-out-loud scenes in the series. Augustus Caesar walking before and questioning an endless line of men that has slept with his daughter is unforgettable. Claudius saluting the crowd in the arena and sitting in Caesar's chair is a calculated 'foolishness', yet still hilarious. Augustus' speech to Rome's bachelors, Messelina's competition with a prostitute, Claudius and his ordeal with his very tall wife, and many many others. In fact, there were many more comic scenes than tragic ones.It is impossible to praise individual performances. It is as though just under the characters' competition for supremacy in the Roman Empire, there is another, an invisible competition among the actors to win the hearts of the audience as the best character performer. And just the way Claudius is pulled behind a curtain and declared an emperor against his will, one feels like pulling out Derek Jacobi from the pack and declare him the best actor. Just like Claudius understates his intelligence, Jacobi understates his presence in the company of others, giving them the floor with minimum interference. He never seeks to dominate the screen until he's chosen as the Caesar. He has plenty of screen time by himself as the narrator.Only one downside. A technical one. The sound in the DVD recording was inconsistent, sometimes loud sometimes low volume.Do yourself a favour and watch "I, Claudius". You won't regret it. 10/10