My Autumn in August sails away from Sanditon

 We finally arrive at the last two episodes of Sanditon ,season one, for this Autumn in August journey and quite a lot has happened indeed! Sadly,Georgiana Lambe gets very little attention here but fear not, there are plenty of dramatic moments to savor:

A Small Victory for Stringer: 

The Sanditon regatta event does go off, rather well, even getting Lady Susan(whom Charlotte met in London) to attend with some well connected friends to boot.

While Charlotte is happy to see her new friend again, she’s less than thrilled about Mrs.Campion(Ruth Kearney), a former love of Sidney’s that has become a wealthy widow looking to rekindle a certain flame, showing up for the day!

The big boat race, which highlights the whole event, turns out to be an unexpected win for Young Stringer, which is great since the poor guy heads into a boatload of misery by the finale:

Before all is said and done, Young Stringer loses his father (due to a fire that affects the future of the town) and his shot at Charlotte, causing him to put aside his dreams of being an architect.

It’s a sad storyline for this character to end up on but rest assured , by the time season two begins, he does take up an apprenticeship which sends him to London. Too bad we don’t hear from him anymore in this series yet he did get a decent outcome at last.

Losing Out on Love:

Meanwhile, Sidney and Charlotte wind up falling head over heels for each other (the why remains a mystery to me) and plans are made for their potential bliss ever after.

However, upon the fire that destroyed a good chunk of Sanditon and threatens serious ruin for Tom Parker(who was too cheap to buy fire insurance;seriously, dude?), Sidney heads off to London to try and raise the funds necessary to keep his relatives out of the literal poorhouse.

Unfortunately for Charlotte, his solution turns out to be marrying his widowed ex-girlfriend. That definitely broke up their romance and if you ask me, Charlotte is better off there. Sidney was too rude and moody to say the least.

I know that many fans were upset about this development when the first season ended and were fit to be tied upon no announcement of a second season back then.

A few years later(due to the popularity of historical romance series such as Bridgerton), a revival of the show gave those fervent folks some major “I told you so!” joy but alas, their dreams of “Sidlotte” were not meant to be.

Since many of the actors were no longer available for the series (understandably due to prior commitments), many of the characters had to be written out and Sidney was one of them. Oh, well, those Sidlotte souls can take comfort in the few passionate kisses their favorite characters shared:

One Happy Ending at Least:

Interestingly enough, the one character that did get a dream wedding was Lady Esther, whose fortunes went from low to high, thanks to her cantankerous aunt not dying and realizing just how much of a scheming weasel her nephew Edward and his cousin Clara were.

Not only did Esther become the sole heir, she found love with Lord Babbington (Mark Stanley), a guy who actually seemed rather sweet and respectful of his beloved’s wishes. Even when revelations about the nature of her relationship with her stepbrother came out(in public, no less!), he was not deterred from his devotion to Esther.

Well, if someone who was not Georgiana Lambe was going to have the wedding she deserved, Esther certainly was a proper choice.  Esther does show up in the second season but not with Babbington (the actor wasn’t available) but they remained married and well, if you want to know more, PBS Passport has all three seasons available for streaming, just saying!:

Well, this wraps my Autumn in August trip and I hope you all had fun in the proverbial sun with these offbeat takes on Jane Austen. Also, thank you PBS for making shows like this available to American audiences even before streaming services existed!

If we are fortunate enough, by this time next year, PBS may still be around to brings us the best in arts and entertainment, along with educational programming that has benefited many generations and hopefully more to come. Supporting your local PBS station, if possible, is a small yet positive step towards achieving that goal.

Have a happy Labor Day weekend, folks and I hope to see you all in the fall(an easy rhyme but hard to resist!):

My Sanditon stay this Autumn in August has a strange side trip

Welcome back to more Autumn in August highlights as we continue to visit Sanditon , season one.

 The main focus of the day are episodes five and six, which sadly sideline my favorite character and shove the spotlight onto Charlotte and Sidney, whose romance is rather basic, if you ask me:

A Sporting Distraction 

As you may recall, Georgiana Lambe(the best character) was having a secret romantic relationship with Otis,that was strongly objected to by Sidney(Miss Lambe’s reluctant guardian). Charlotte , therefore, has become a go-between in keeping the correspondence flowing by sending out and picking their mutual love letters.

With the annual cricket match coming up, Charlotte and 
Georgiana see this event as a good opportunity for a quick visit with Otis. 

That distraction is further aided by Charlotte stepping into the game as a late replacement for the beleaguered Tom Parker, embarrassed at being called out for not paying his workers on the town renovation crew(which he rightly deserved to be publicly challenged on as those men have families to feed and bills to pay there, sir!).

Charlotte is no stranger to the game, coming from a large family in the country where such games are played by whoever is on hand. This twist of fate does take everyone’s eye off of Georgiana , which turns out to be both good and bad there:

Unfortunately, this leads to a plot line where Georgiana gets kidnapped and almost forced into marriage in order to cover Otis’ gambling debts(he had nothing to do with that plan as his mail had been swiped by his creditors).

This brings Sidney and Charlotte together as they head to London separately to find Georgiana and wind up teaming to track her down. It ultimately ends with a traveling coach race that saves Georgiana but ends her relationship with Otis, for now at least.

 This is such a melodramatic story line that could’ve come right out  of a Gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe, a popular writer of such tales who was lovingly spoofed by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey , so I suppose it fits here. After all, Sanditon is an unfinished novel and Northanger Abbey was published posthumously, so the inspiration is in tune with Austen’s tastes.

Ballroom Blitz, Take Two

With Sidney and Charlotte being thrown together like this, a sort of affectionate feeling arises between them yet I’m still not fully convinced of their mutual attraction at all.

They attend a masked ball in London, part of a ploy by Tom to get folks interested in attending the upcoming regatta (boating exhibition) in Sanditon, which might not be even happening if the cantankerous Lady Denham dies(there’s a whole subplot with her potential demise and her relatives making devious plans regarding her will but I would prefer more Georgiana drama, if you ask me).

Back at the ball, Charlotte starts to have serious feelings for Sidney and confesses them to a complete stranger, a noble lady named Susan(who seems much nicer than a similarly named leading lady from an early Austen work):

With such newly found encouragement, Charlotte joins Sidney in the dance floor and the two of them seem to be on their way to true love. Of course, that won’t last for long as Sidney runs into a former lady friend who happens to recently widowed. Yep, another bad break on the rocky road to love indeed!:

I intend to wrap this revisit ti Sanditon up soon but might just for fun, have a rewatch of the 2007 adaptation of Northanger Abbey, which is available on PBS Passport along with all three seasons of Sanditon. 

Since Andrew Davies, the writer who has adapted many classic works such as the iconic Pride and Prejudice miniseries, also did this version of NA and Sanditon as well, having all of this readily available via public television is a great convenience that is surprisingly affordable. Plus, supporting public television in these troubling times is a small yet vital way to do what you can towards bringing about better days to some.

Next time, we will be covering the final two episodes of season one of Sanditon and yes, there are some shocking surprises in store, especially for Charlotte!:

My next Autumn in August stop takes me to the shores of Sanditon

 Welcome back to more of Autumn in August , where we deal with the late summer heat by watching some fine fall season fare.

Granted, there is quite a bit of summertime energy in our next entry, Sanditon(based on an unfinished novel by Jane Austen) but the plot points are autumnal enough to certainly suit our seasonal needs.

I have rewatched the first four episodes-there are eight in all-and instead of doing a recap, I will just highlight some of my favorite elements of this series (and one low point as well) in the manner of vacation style reminiscing.

The general plot is that the title location is a small seaside town looking to become a major tourist spot for those seeking healthy spa like remedies. One of the main proponents of this cause is Tom Parker(Kris Marshall) accompanied by his supportive yet sensible wife Mary(Kate Ashfield).

They have a brief roadside accident that literally throws them into the path of Charlotte Heywood (Rose Willams), the eldest daughter of a country family. Out of gratitude for her assistance, the Parkers invite her to Sanditon and that sets off a whole chain of events, including meeting Tom’s brother Sydney (Theo James) who is meant to be Charlotte’s love interest but we’ll get to them soon enough.

In the meantime, here’s a look at a few of my personal highlights from this first half:

Favorite Character:

To be fair, Georgiana Lambe is my favorite character in all three seasons of Sanditon and as portrayed by Crystal Clarke, she is as timeless as Elizabeth Bennet or any other Austen heroine.

As a heiress from Antiqua whose is made to leave her homeland upon the death of her father and pushed into society by the dealings of her guardian Sydney (who doesn’t hide the fact that this is a burden that she’s making more difficult for him in his obnoxious opinion!), Georgiana has much to bear with and while expressing her displeasure very forthrightly, is also just a girl looking to find her own way to happiness.

Her friendship with Charlotte allows Georgiana some moments of comfort and levity there. Also, she is strong enough to handle the biases of others yet vulnerable to being thwarted in love(as we shall soon see), making her way more interesting than most of the ladies in this first season alone and for good reason indeed!:

Best Takedown Moment:

That honor goes to Georgiana as the reluctant guest of honor at Lady Denham’s luncheon. The true reason for this get together is for Lady D(Anne Reid) to push her odious nephew Edward(Jack Fox) towards marrying into Miss Lambe’s quite considerable fortune.

Georgiana is not only well aware of this but equally aware of the patronizing bigotry that goes along with such an invitation. Unlike her ladyship(whose manners would make Lady Catherine De Burgh blush!), Georgiana is demurely able to put this vulgar display into proper check with one withering line:

Best Romance:

Once again, I have to give these roses to Georgiana as many of the love stories here range from hopeful(Charlotte and Young Stringer,yes!) to creepy (Edward and his stepsister plus cousin,ewww!)at best.

Miss Lambe, however, has a potential love match in Otis Molyneux(Jyuddah Jaymes), who she met in London and is kept from by Sidney. While there are facts yet to be revealed about their relationship at this juncture ,Otis and Georgiana do have such onscreen chemistry that sparks practically fly off them during each of their scenes together (however, Georgiana should’ve given Charlotte a heads up about being the cover story for that secret meeting!):

Worst Ballroom Blitz:

Sidney and Charlotte as the main couple of this show just never felt right to me for many reasons, first of which is his unwarranted rudeness to her from the beginning. “New maid?” he asks of his sister in law as he rides into town and greets Charlotte and Mary out in a walk together. Their relationship goes downhill from there.

At the first ball of the Sanditon season, Charlotte finds herself alone with Sidney and upon his request, tells him some of her initial impressions about his family. Now, while she was a bit too snarky in some of her comments, he did ask her for her honest opinion and too bad if it wasn’t to his liking!

Truly, it feels like this scene was written as an excuse for Sidney to be justified in being rude to her yet given his cold and dismissive attitude towards her from the jump, this makes him more of a jerk not the less of one here:

Despite such ballroom bumps in the road, this revisit to Sanditon has been an entertaining experience for the most part.

It’s one that I am able to take via PBS Passport, a reasonably affordable streaming service that helps public broadcasting out very much during these turbulent times as federal funding has been unnecessarily cut. 

If you fondly remember watching Sanditon when it originally aired and/or curious about the entire series , many of the PBS channels this week will be showing a “Sanditon Revisited” special that you can either watch on your regular station or view online at PBS Passport. Remember, “Defunded but not Defeated “ is the right way to join in this particular fight for intellectual freedom.

I hope to finish my trip to Sanditon by Labor Day but there’s no need to rush through such good times, now is there? Oh, and I leave you with my last favorite thing about Sanditon-the opening credits! They are such a joy to behold in their innate simplicity that really sets the perfect tone for what’s to come:

My Autumn in August PBS Passport claims that Death comes to Pemberley

Welcome to another round of Autumn in August , where we rejoice in the approaching fall season in the end portion of summer.

Since this year happens to the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen, she seemed to be perfect hostess for this occasion and in order to encourage more people of the advantages of subscribing to PBS Passport (more that later), I chose a more recent adaptation of an Austen themed work to start us off:

Death Comes to Pemberley, based on the 2011 novel by acclaimed mystery author P.D. James, is a two part miniseries that first aired in the US in 2014. It stars Matthew Rhys and Anna Maxwell Martin as Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, living in relative calm several years after the events of Pride and Prejudice.

That calm is quickly broken by the unannounced arrival of wayward sister Lydia(Jenna Coleman) who is literally screaming bloody murder. She and her equally unwelcome husband Wickham (Matthew Goode) intended to crash the upcoming ball at Pemberley when an argument between longtime friend Denny and Wickham leads to a brutal end for one of them:

The one who got the worst of it was Denny, leaving Wickham to be charged with murder first at an inquest and then a trial.

The magistrate investigating the case is a man named Hardcastle(Trevor Eve) is no stranger to Darcy or Wickham as his late father held the same title and was very much a ruthless pursuer of the law. Darcy has the authority as a magistrate as well but due to obvious conflict of interest goes to Hardcastle, who refuses to play favorites with anyone here.

One of the interesting elements is the story is seeing the justice system of this time period at work. While forensics are limited to say the least, the reliance on witness testimony is truly crucial and the public observers who attend both the inquest and the trial are not shy masking their opinions on the proceedings known:

We also get to see some familiar P&P characters take the stage as Georgiana (Elinor Tomlinson) has two suitors, one of whom is Col. Fitzwilliam, beloved older sister Jane pays a visit to comfort Elizabeth and yes, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet spend a little time at Pemberley before all of the action begins(Mr. Bennet does head to the household library as fast as he can!).

A minor character that plays a strong supporting role in DCTP is Mrs. Reynolds(Joanna Scanlon). The devoted housekeeper is in fine form, supporting Elizabeth as much as she can while holding a steady course with the staff. The actress portraying her brings a fully formed humanity to what would consider to be a side character at best and she really grew on me during this rewatch.

Lydia, of course, is the ultimate drama queen here but she’s not completely superficial as the situation gets worse for her husband. Her giddiness is well timed at one point when Lady Catherine (Penelope Keith) pays a call to make her opinion known, fortunately cutting that visit short:

All in all, if you are a fan of Jane Austen style mysteries, this miniseries is a must watch for sure.

The cast is excellent, with Rhys and Maxwell Martin giving fine performances and having great onscreen chemistry with each other. Trevor Eve as Hardcastle does have a commanding presence yet doesn’t overpower his co-stars here(he was most recently seen in another book to TV adaptation, A Discovery of Witches) and the overall look and feel of the show fits as neatly as a set of ladies gloves.

The only P.D. James book I’ve ever read was this one and her reputation as a modern day mystery icon is well displayed both on page and screen. 

I do like seeing both Elizabeth and Darcy seek the truth of the matter in separate yet similarly distinct ways, each of them having their own set of social connections lead them to a mutual conclusion (I can say no more in order to keep this a spoiler free zone). It’s a bit more of a dramatic take on the source material than some might prefer but Ms. James and company do honor Jane Austen (who did enjoy a thrilling read or two in her day) very well indeed.

I do hope that if you haven’t seen DCTP yet, you do so via PBS Passport as public television needs all the help they can get these days.

 While the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting its doors, PBS stations are still fighting the good fight for us all. “Defunded but not Defeated “ is their new motto and a great one at that. It doesn’t cost a lot to join(I only pay ten dollars a month myself) and you get a lot of great programming, including other Austen related content such as the recent adaptation of Gil Hornsby’s Miss Austen, a sheer delight, and hopefully more to come.

Meanwhile, our Autumn in August will continue with a look at season one of Sanditon , a rather loose take on this uncompleted novel by Austen yet rather amusing in many ways as the podcasters at Reclaiming Jane can well attest to !

For now, I plan to pack my metaphorical bags for the seashore while biding a nearly fatal farewell to the good folks at Pemberley there: