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:
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.
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.
One Happy Ending at Least:
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:
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!):
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