Related: Footfall and Lucifers Hammer (Both by Niven and Pournelle)

It is better, and yeah for anybody who read the series the ending was especially awful. It's been awhile but I feel like they packed at least one book into the last 2-3 episodes of the last season. The book series still has a weird 30 year jump, but you stay there awhile at least.

For the first few seasons of the show I thought they did a good job, even though (or maybe because?) the show departs from the books in a lot of ways. But they tried to cram way too much into the last season and just made it seem like jibberish.