I think they fell into the view of Cicero as a political operative without a clear political agenda (rather than a political operative with a very clear political agenda), but of course he suffered because of the way they cut the story to focus on the civil war and on Caesar's story (and cut out Caesar's friendship with Cicero, as well).

Because it's really just a big splashy soap opera, and trying to comprehend it as anything else will make even my decidedly layperson head hurt?

I know, I know. I just wish they hadn't gone on and on about how accurate they were being while at the same time having this disregard for historical narrative. I mean, I'm all for having good drama rather than poor but accurate history, but Rome drives me up a wall, sometimes.