BRITONS TRIUMPHANT: An Alternate History of Dark Age Britain

[amphibulous]

The BBC actually did the sort of realistic Arthur that Holmes discusses, back in the 70s. It was meant as a children's program, but the scripts and production were excellent. Oh - and it had an almost unimaginably high violence quotient for children's TV. It featured moderate use of Brian Blessed, and you can get it on DVD:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_of_the_Britons

 

[Mark-ITSOT]

That was actually made by HTV. One of the old ITV franchises

 

[amphibulous]

That was actually made by HTV. One of the old ITV franchises

My bad! Some of those franchises did great work - Thames made the spy drama Callan, which probably remained the state of the art up until the HBO era.