Fanservice comes to Pemberley

[litlover12]

Just a few scattered thoughts on part 2 . . .

• I don't understand why Austen's dialogue got rewritten in the flashbacks -- unless somehow they didn't have the rights to it, but I hope they at least tried to get them. How can you try to improve on Austen's dialogue? (Answer: You can't.) And did they honestly think the fangirls wouldn't notice?? However, speaking of fangirls . . .


• Mom and I absolutely shrieked with laughter over the bedroom scene. So completely un-Austenian, but boy, do they know their fangirls! Somewhere Matthew Rhys is thinking, "Eat your heart out, Colin Firth's wet shirt!"


• Why would there be a shortage of coroners, I wonder? (Aside from the obvious desire to use a character that everyone already knew.) Did the coroner crop not get enough rain or something?


• Imagine being a footman in the Darcy family. People are fighting and proposing and breaking up and sobbing and falling to the floor all around you, and you don't get to speak or move or even have a facial expression. I don't know how you'd get through it, unless you were secretly working on your future tell-all in your head the whole time.


• Lady Catherine didn't seem quite right to me, somehow. Lydia didn't either, this time. I understand the temptation to make her be serious and sensible just for once, at a moment like this -- and Coleman acted it all very well -- but somehow I think Lydia would keep on whooping and howling and making an unholy nuisance of herself right through the very worst of it, had it come to that. (When she wondered what America would make of them, I yelled, "We don't want them! Take 'em back!")


• Dr. McPhee had the best hair EVER. Like Beethoven stuck his finger in a light socket.


• All in all, it was good fun. But I'm not sorry to say farewell to that teal wallpaper.

Comments

[sonneta.livejournal.com]

Jane Austen is definitely in the Public Domain, they shouldn't have to get rights to use her words. Sooo, who knows why they changed the dialogue.

THE BEDROOM SCENE. I was like "No, I don't want to see this!" but fortunately, this is PBS (or originally the BBC I guess), they aren't going to show you much.

...And then like two days later, Elizabeth is like "I'm pregnant." And... it's like... wait, what? Howww... how.

Maybe the footmen at Pemberley are like the Beefeaters at Windsor. They can't move a muscle, no matter what.

Why is Col. Fitzwilliam such a jerk now??? He was perfectly nice in P & P. And where the heck was Bingley, isn't he supposed to be Darcy's BFF?

Death Comes to Pemberley was fine, but I don't think I'd rewatch it.

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was pretty sure she was in the public domain, but I was so confused by the changes I almost started to question that. I mean, WHY wouldn't you use her words if you could? It makes no sense.

(Don't get me started on the grammatical faux pas of using "them" for "him." People didn't do that back then! GRR!)

I think Lizzy looked pregnant even before that. Darcy must be blind as a bat. :-)

I too mourn the changes to poor Col. Fitzwilliam. He was so nice in P&P. It's not fair. :-(

I thought of the Beefeaters too! And then, of course, I thought of the I Love Lucy ep where she tried to make one laugh!!

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

Don't get me started on the grammatical faux pas of using "them" for "him." People didn't do that back then! GRR!

That was my thought, too! It was so jarring - obviously it was so that Darcy's words could refer to Elizabeth as well, but we were perfectly capable of making the inference without that grammatical hiccup.

I thought the bedroom scene was so awkward, though. I spent the whole time muttering, "I don't want to see this, this is so inappropriate, is it over yet???"

[msantimacassar.livejournal.com]

I was very unimpressed by the flashback scenes. They just felt weirdly jarring and inaccurate. :/

Fanservice is right! I nearly fell over trying to grab the remote during a certain scene and then laughed quite a bit afterwards! They do know their audience, haha.

I thought Eleanor Tomlinson was a very good crier but I was rather bemused by the footmen's non reaction. I guess it does make a point of how servants were supposed to be like furniture rather than actual people.

I actually liked Lydia's graver moments, but thought it was realistic that she didn't want to know the truth and then recovered so quickly afterwards. Made me almost ship Lydia and Wickham too, and that is unheard of! (I chuckled at your reaction, a+!)

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

I didn't think Lady Catherine was right in this either. Too bland, not sharp enough?

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's exactly right. I did like the part where she went off in a huff after being introduced to Lydia. But before that she didn't seem like Lady Catherine at all.