Romans and Countrymen

By Gerald Clarke

I, Claudius and The Best of Families

This is television's year of the family. CBS has the Fitzpatricks, NBC has Mulligan's Stew, and ABC has Eight Is Enough. By some grand irony, however, PBS, the poor stepsister network, has the two most ambitious family sagas: I, Claudius, yet another impressive import from the BBC, and The Best of Families, a lavish $6 million drama of New York City in the last two decades of the 19th century. Running simultaneously, the two series offer a lesson in contrasts, showing just how good--and how bad--TV can be.

The good, I, Claudius, is excellent indeed. Adapted from Robert Graves' novels I, Claudius and Claudius, the God, the 13-part program, which began Nov.

6, covers the first 80 years of the Roman Empire, from Augustus to Claudius. Gibbon called Claudius the stupidest of all Roman emperors--a considerable statement, given the fact that in 500 years there were 81 in the class. But it was Graves' fictional conceit that Claudius only feigned stupidity to save his life in that murderous, fun-filled age. While, over the years, his relatives were running from dinner or orgy with various poisons in their gullets, Claudius munched serenely on, watching and waiting and watching some more. I, Claudius purports to be the product of all that observation:

the memoirs of the fourth emperor, conveniently locked away for the titillation of a distant 20th century.

As history, I, Claudius is pure Robert Graves--though his vision is perhaps no more inaccurate than any other history's. As high-gloss soap opera, however, the series is little short of wonderful.

Sian Phillips stands out as Livia, the wicked witch of the Tiber, who dominates all around with her icy, terrible beauty. Brian Blessed manages the difficult task of making Augustus, the founding father, appear both wise and foolish, the conqueror of the world who cannot manage his own family. Derek Jacobi's Claudius is half stumble and stutter and half genius, but convincing in every detail.

To achieve authenticity, some costume dramas force characters to pronounce every word without benefit of contractions--the isn'ts, don'ts and can'ts that make speech bearable. Wisely opting for today's idiom, Scriptwriter Jack Pulman occasionally falls into the opposite trap, with lines like "The Parthians are at it again, always stirring up trouble!" And Pulman doubtless was merely having fun when he put in Livia's mouth Mae West's famous line:

"Goodness has nothing to do with it!"

Such small quibbles aside, goodness had everything to do with this superb pro duction of I, Claudius.

According to the press releases, the Children's Television Workshop sent a woman from its staff to spend a year in London learning how the British are able to produce such fine historical dramas as I, Claudius. But either she did not stay long enough or she stayed too long. If the product of her efforts, The Best of Families, is any indication, the British secret is as safe as the crown jewels: The Best of Families is the worst of shows.

The eight-week series, which started Oct. 27, focuses on three fictional New York City families, following their his tories from 1880 to 1900. There are the poor Irish immigrants, the middle-class clergyman's family and the railroad-and bank-owning aristocrats. Real events, such as the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, provide the framework for each episode. The scriptwriters, unhappily, are responsible for the rest.

The research was painstaking, and everything, from silverware to the mating habits of the gentility, is as accurate as 1,000 hours in the library could make it. Why, then, is it that I, Claudius, which is unrestrained hokum, seems truthful, while Families, which is so much more truthful, seems like hokum? The reason is that CTW has brought everything to the series but imagination and talent. The act ing is spotty, the direction glacially slow. The characters have as much life as the figures in the dioramas at a museum of natural history, and The Best of Families is as interminable as a ninth-grade history class on the last Friday before vacation.

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