For some unanswerable reason, I've been watching golf this weekend. Why? I have no idea. But, last night, from I'd Do Anything onwards, I watched The Masters, only to break off by watching The Best Of Youth on BBC Four. With Saturday night awash with talent shows, quiz shows and bits of drama (thanks to Keris for filling me in on the first episode of Pushing Daisies), this four-part Italian mini-series wasn't the most obvious of television choices. But, blow me down, if it wasn't absolutely superb. I mean, like, really REALLY good.

The Best Of Youth is so big it got a cinema release. But not just one cinema release, two of the buggers. There are 360 minutes of the thing! It originally appeared on Italian TV something like five years ago, and is one of those epic mini-series we just don't see much on TV these days.

The story? It centred around the two brothers of the Carati family, who live in Rome. We pick up the action in the mid-1960s - Matteo is head-strong, emotional, capricious and very volatile, while his brother, Nicola, is much more down-to-earth, likeable and sensitive. They're both studying to be doctors, and, Nicola especially, likes going out with his friends and flirting with women and going to parties. In one scene, Matteo fixes Nicola and his friends up with a beautiful prostitute, but Nicola can't go through with it, and wants to snuggle and chat instead.

Matteo gets a part-time job at the local asylum, and is tasked to take confused patient Giorgia out for walks, to help re-engage her with the world. But Girogia and Matteo's relationship is volatile - they argue a lot. But, what is clear, is that a strong friendship is starting to form between the two. When Matteo sees that Giorgia has been subjected to elecroshock treatment, he busts her out, intent on taking her back to her parents.

He asks Nicola for help. Despite his better judgement, he agrees, and the three of them take off on a road trip through the heart of beautiful Italy. Giorgia warms to Nicola's warm and approachable personality, while Matteo still broods. When they finally reach Giorgia's father, he wants nothing to do with her. He gets a smack in the chops from Matteo for his troubles.

Sitting at a train station, deciding their next move, Nicola asks Giorgia to go and buy some ice creams. In her mental state this is quite an undertaking for the teen, but to her credit she goes and buys some ice creams. All is going well until she becomes confused and is taken away by the police. The boys are upset, thinking they've failed her and worry about what will happen to her.

This was all in the first hour and I would have been happy if that was it. The interplay between the three characters was wonderful. But there was more. Matteo, in a fit of pique, left Nicola standing on the platform. Inexplicably, this free but tortured soul went and joined the army.

Nicola, meanwhile, decides to take a summer trip to Norway (the brothers were supposed to go together). It becomes the making of him. Oh, I liked Nicola. He loves a bit of life, and he met some hippies, went skinny dipping in the beautiful fjords, grew a beard, became a lumberjack to earn some cash, and started a relationship with the (I think) foreman's gorgeous daughter. He was loving it.

Nicola was wrenched back to reality when he saw, on the telly, that floods had decimated Florence. Water was licking the under carriage of the Ponte Vecchio, it was that bad. Nicola, being Nicola, went back to Italy and took part in the volunteer mission. It was there he was reunited with Matteo, who was helping out with the clean-up operation in his capacity as a soldier. They both couldn't believe their eyes - the two of them had changed so much since they had last seen each other.

In among the rubble, mud and carnage, an attractive blonde woman started to play the piano (it had been rescued from one of the sodden buildings). Nicola was transfixed - by both the music and the woman playing it. The episode ended when he said he would go to Turin with her...

Phew! And wow! What a piece of work. The Best Of Youth had a sort of Biblical quality to it, using as it did classic paradigms of drama - two brothers, a quest, love, disaster etc etc. Set against the backdrop of an Italy that was going through all sorts of political and terrorist activity, I've got a feeling that subsequent episodes will get darker, but for now the first ep was just great. Rich, engrossing and just terrific.

I hope this will be on the iPlayer so, if you missed it, you can a chance to catch up with it. As I said, it's not the most obvious of Saturday night televisual choices, but you'll be rewarded greatly if you give it a whirl.