"IS THERE ANY MAN IN ROME WHO HAS NOT SLEPT WITH MY DAUGHTER!"-Brian Blessed, proving that great hamming and great acting can coincide.

It's an absolutely brilliant TV series and as you say filled with top notch actors and it's amazing how well they can carry the whole thing. It's all done to feel like theatre, giving so much emphasis on the actors over the sets or music or such. Which given how great the actors (and writing) is really works.

I'd say it's better than any other Roman TV series, including Rome if only because the I, Claudius characters don't need to have sex every 10 minutes.