Really?
I have never watched it myself...
Though I have been meaning to. 
You've never seen it? Well, you must. If you like Napoleonic war action this is good. It is done pretty much in chronological order so I recommend you watch them that way. The budget is not the highest, but the stories are good. Another I would recommend for older youth/adults is the Horatio Hornblower series. They are very similar to one another in production (and setting, etc).
I've never read any of the Sharpe books, but I have read the Hornblower series and that is chronological and a great read if you like naval action. It's not as intellectually stimulating as reading GK Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc, but it is fun and can teach you a lot about how the navy of the turn of the 19th C in British nations ran.
