One of my favorite 70's mini-series as a kid was Martian Chronicles. I had just finished Ray Bradbury's book back then (1979), and I was "in the zone" the first night that the haunting theme composed by Stanley Myers came out my little TV (as a kid I had a B&W 12" General Electric portable TV that my grandmother gave me as a gift so I could watch series at night while lying on my bed). The story was a huge departure from the book, but I was thrilled, and hugely dissapointed that it was only 3 episodes long. Over the years, I have bought this series several times (Betamax tapes, VHS tapes and the infamous Collector's Edition DVD, and also the soundtrack CD from MGM Music), and today had the chance to enjoy it in 720p, in one sitting. It looks fantastic. The budget was spent in the main cast and locations, and very, very little in visual effects (as usual in most of BBC's fare of the late 70's), and the end result is fairly decent, with only a HUGE, AWFUL, BAD VFX shot in the third episode that even as a kid made me laugh, and a few matte paintings that aren't that good here and there. The sets, props and art design are early 70's top of the line (it was shot in 1978), some of them as good as anything NBC or BBC had on the air back then. The idea was that keep the story and message clear, despite the obvious flaws. The Martian props are just amazing, and I've been looking for Martian Conflict Masks since. As a modern viewer, you'll need to look at this show with you suspension of disbelief mode fully active (the sky is blue, there are clouds everywhere, water canals and more importantly AIR, on Mars), and take the astronautics "science" with it huge grain of salt (that part of the show was crap even then). You have to, in order to enjoy a great cast, a thoughtful narrative and an excellent ending.

First things first: I never read the book. There is no specific reason, I just didn't. From what I gather the story very much deviates from the book so much that even Bradbury itself didn't liked it. In any event, this show can't be judged by it's looks, it's OK but even for 1980 it looks cheap. And, of course, you can't take the science seriously now but you should be aware that this was written from 1946 onward and published in 1950 and at that time, well, they just didn't know better. To change it in the show would not have been right, anyhow it was cheaper to produce that way.
About the show itself: the first part is actually not bad. The second was [spoiler] too religous for my liking and the third had that stupid part with the blonde. But it also has the meeting between Wilder and the Martian which was really well written with good dialogue. [/spoiler] Alltogether the massage is a good one, it is a very critical story about colonisation and the destruction of other cultures. Many things are true even today and I am always amazed how visionary writers like Bradbury have been. So, it's probably better to read the book than watch this series. But if you do, don't judge the book by it's TV adaptation I'd say.