This mini-series can't be found in the USA, so I was glad to find an English-track DVD here.
DVD quality is excellent, and the deluxe packaging is pretty spectacular.
I remember watching this mini-series when it was first broadcast in 1984, when shows like Dallas and Falcon Crest ruled the TV ratings, so perhaps it's not surprising that this version of Last Days of Pompeii finds the oft-told story done in all-out soap opera mode...and the result is like eating popcorn: you just can't stop! Yes, the melodrama and villainy and pathos are over the top, but why not? Vesuvius is about to blow its top, for Jupiter's sake!
The all-star international cast (Franco Nero, Laurence Olivier, Ernest Borgnine, Lesley-Anne Down, Olivia Hussey, Ned Beatty, Anthony Quayle, et. al.) is more than capable of wrangling all the melodrama. Duncan Regehr (as the gladiator) was the hunk of the moment, but it's Nicholas Clay who flashes his naked butt in an apparent wardrobe-malfunction--a moment surely cut for US TV, but intact here!