Death Comes to Pemberley: a sort of rambling review

No real spoilers, but some vagueness. This isn't really a review either, just some observations.

A couple of weeks ago, The Mary Sue posted about the BBC ordering a series for Death Comes to Pemberley (a link to the casting, of you're so inclined). I'm hoping that PBS runs it on Mystery! But my first reaction was, "why have I not read this?!" The book by P.D. James came out in 2011. I like James, I like Austen, I like mysteries, what could go wrong? So I went to the library and checked it out.

It was okay. I think it will be a fabulous mini-series. There are scenes that I could see playing out that will be great, like the trial or when Lydia rides up to Pemberley. Some wonderfully dramatic scenes. There are some scenes where Darcy is spot on. But there are others where the people speaking are not Darcy and not Lizzie. They may have the same names, but these are not the characters from Austen. I don't care if it's six years and two kids later, not the same people. Most everyone else is fairly well done. Except Colonel Fitzwilliam. He's not particularly well-developed in P&P, but he seems wholly unlike the glimpses in P&P.

And the epilogue, where Darcy blames himself for everything that has ever gone wrong with the world and mostly for events in P&P? So not right. Regret for a couple of things, I can believe. The speech he gives, I cannot. You can skip the epilogue. And I can't think of a single scene in which Lizzie acted like the Lizzie from the end of P&P.

I didn't think the mystery itself was particularly clever either. But that is forgivable, and really, to be expected in a sequel that tries to stay true to the original characters and setting. But it is dramatic, and I enjoyed it once I accepted that these are facsimiles of Lizzie and Darcy.

I have to add, it also bothers me that Lizzie isn't the focus, Darcy is. I just expected it to be female-driven, so when she is confined to writing letters and Darcy is off dragging bodies back from the woods and going to court, I am disappointed. Maybe it's more historically accurate that way, but I don't care. Elizabeth Bennett would be going around asking questions and judging people, not waiting on her husband to come to bed.