The BBC have asked Andrew Davies to adapt War & Peace as a six part drama for TV this year. Reading between the lines it will be presented as a 'soap' format. But before you throw up your hands in horror when the BBC did the same with Dickens 'Bleak House' a few years ago, it was, in my opinion, superb. So, it could be worth watching. And, Andrew Davies always does these adaptions so well.
It is too immense and detailed to condense down into six episodes, even it they are two hours each. I am not sure why the BBC feel they need to do classical literature this way. Bleak House was actually brilliant but it had a lot of holes in it and actually felt like Davies rather than Dickens - my personal slant because I know the book very well. Jo the crossing sweeper along with Petit Gavroche in 'Les Mis' are characters from literature I have written about several times each in the context of children in historic contexts.
War and Peace is the kind of thing that would have been best taken up by the Pythons as a film rather than trying this. OK, let's see before casting aspersions although I certainly will not put myself out to watch it come the time.