Sanditon ITV

[JaneJeffer]

Anyone watching?

Another Team Babington here, although his speech to Esther was very modern (practically accused her brother of coercive control). But still he is now coming across as a genuinely good man and a gentleman in the best sense of the word. I'm impressed at how his and Esther's characters have developed.

Predictions for episode 8:

Lady Denham tells everyone that drinking a glass of seawater a day restored her to full health, the masses flock to Sanditon to quaff saltwater by the gallon and Tom Parker is saved from financial ruin.

Babbington and Esther get married and live happily ever after, her brother and Clara die in ditch somewhere...but their hair still looks fabulous!

Stringer and Sidney have some sort of homoerotic fight, possibly in a fountain, Charlotte is well impressed and marries Sidney.

Stringer is snapped up by Big Suze to build something for the Prince Regent, his fortune is made and he spends his life pining for Charlotte.

Tom and Mary have another baby and call it Charlotte.

Sidney could have solved all his brother's problems if he married Mrs Campion (richest widow in the country). I highly suspect that would have been the course taken back then. I felt sorry for Clara, she's had a really rotten life. The rhythmic rowing with Sid & Charlotte... ooh err Mrs! I've just realised the portly young brother and the hypochondriac woman are brother and sister, not husband and wife.

I'm enjoying Sanditon, in a so bad it's really watchable way, like Indian Summers (few years back on Channel 4 if anyone remembers it)

@Babybel90 I think you’ve got it about right! Although you may have missed out Edward swirling a black cape and muttering “I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for my meddling sister”

@Sapatsea I really enjoyed Indian Summers and was very sorry when it was cancelled!

I love love Babington

Esther was definitely warming up to Lord B - for her, that look she gave him over his hankie was positively love-struck. I like them as a couple.

I would really like to see Miss Lambe and Arthur pair up too. It would just be such a fun reversion of the trope of the fat bumbling idiot who only ever gets used as a punchline. He seems like a good 'un when he's not being a hypochondriac, and I'm sure Georgiana will soon briskly talk him out of that.

@Babybel90 Fully down with homoerotic fountain wrestling - can’t believe we haven’t had it already

Stringer burns his hat & disappears off to London where he finds a mirror, realises he’s handsome af, has some elocution lessons & bags an extremely hot rich wife. Occasionally he wonders about ‘oh what was her name?’ back in sanditon & then goes back to counting his money

Finally caught up! Sandioaks indeed... now. Maybe a popular opinion but I felt quite annoyed when young Stringer snapped 'not the prize I wanted' at Sidney when he was given the regatta trophy. Surely he's nicer than that?! Perhaps the ugly hat weighed his head down too much...

@kit19 - I think we’re owed some fountain wrestling if I’m honest, I’ve sat through 7 hours of this waiting for Stringer to get his kit off!

@kaytees yes, I thought that was out of character too, Sidney could have easily said what do you mean by that? And he would have looked very silly indeed.

I haven't sat through all this crap to not get any fountain wrestling. Doesn't have to be a fountain, the river or the sea will do, or a mill pond, or a deep puddle. Just get the hell in there!

@Babybel90 I’m frankly disappointed! I thought it was in Leo’s contracts that he always got his kit off - victoria, beecham house, clique, I’ll find you - so what’s with all the covering up going on here eh??

@fatherfintanfay at this stage I’ll take Tom & Arthur squirting them with a hose, anything!

It was a bit strange, the sudden bookish stuff, when she hasn’t touched a book on screen before. I thought she was firmly in the ‘gutsy, sociable, naive’ pigeonhole

Another vote for the loveliness of Lord B!

I felt sorry for Clara, she's had a really rotten life. Me too. I know she could have been much worse off and at least she had a home with Lady Denham and had escaped from the predatory uncle but to have no agency over your life must have been torturous.

I remember reading extracts from the diary of a Regency woman who had to live with relatives and was quietly going insane because she felt so trapped by her circumstances.

I felt when Clara was telling Esther about her and Edward that she was upset to hurt her but was putting her own survival first.

Lily Sacofsky is such a good actress.

My guess for episode 8 is that Susan turns up again with the prince on her arm, thus permanently sealing Sanditon's reputation as the fashionable place to be.

Clara is an interesting character, I agree - people in general had such rubbish lives, a brief watch of 'who do you think you' are confirms that, I've not seen a story that isn't desperately sad yet. I remember one about a woman whose husband and child had died on the same day and she had to choose who to be with. Another one whose husband was hanged and then she miscarried the baby, another one who left her 2 kids in an orphanage when husband 1 died as must've been pretty common in those days. To say nothing of the bigamists, the lawyer employing his illegitimate daughter as a maid...

The imagined past is so much more fun than the reality!

I am enjoying the series, watching it on Iplayer after initial cringing/meh at some parts on Sunday evenings. Initally disappointed but once separate it from Jane Austin and think it as a period drama, it is entertaining. Definite fan of Sidney who is good but been hurt and taken wrong path but now righting self. He is also the 'sensible' one out of all the other Parkers. They balance one another as Charlotte is irritating but a good kind person. Mr Stringer is too nice but Charlotte needs more guidance and she and Sidney are a good influence on each other.

I hope Esther and Lord B marry - I have loved Esther's character but found her brother's character annoying. I enjoyed Clara too. I hope Georgiana features more in last episode and not lost now that Sidney and Charlotte are playing out more . Lady Denham's improving that was funny but thought likely once Esther confessed (hearing last to go). Couldn't work out whether Lady D frowned when lying there at the time - I thought slight line change in forehead at time.

I am concerned about last episode. I read somewhere Andrew Davies is leaving it in a way that viewers think 'you can't leave it like that'. I am hoping after building up, that they don't let Charlotte act out like Jane Austin - loved someone but not married. I don't think Second series would work unless as said, focus on other characters. I will miss it but always a DVD for a rainy day. I'v enjoyed reading posts here too - nobody I know has watched it at all.

it struck me that Clara leaving is a natural opener for a second series but there could be little character overlap!

Clare and Esther feel like proper women who have lived which is another reason why i find the gap between Sidney and Charlotte wince inducing. She comes across as so much younger and naive and I'm not a fan of the experienced man with young naive woman he can mould trope.

I still find it very sad that Stringer being nice is seen as a failing.....I like niceness in people. Also bluntly he has no flipping choice - if he were ever not nice to people in the class above him he'd be out of a job and starving in the streets

as Leo says in an interview "because of Stringer's social status, he has to be more humble, he has to be more polite because if he's not, he's never going to get to where he wants to be."

It doesn't help that they have Charlotte look like a young girl with her hair down.

Yes, I know it's been said before but the hair down thing is really annoying. Any gentlewoman who was old enough to be 'out' would have her hair up in public. Putting your hair up was a rite of passage well into even the 20th Century, but Davies has ignored this.

Her hair is not only down, but it's completely ungroomed. She looks like she's been in the sea and not bothered to run a brush through it afterwards. I'm also not sure she would have been wearing a white gown much beyond her childhood, would she?

You're right, FatherFintan - she is certainly rocking the 'beach waves' look ... about 200 years before it became fashionable!

so it seems there is an unexpected death and funeral in Sanditon on Sunday.......bets people

Im going for Edward - maybe killing himself because Esther is off with babbington
Clara because she's found out and in disgrace
Young Stringer because he doesnt really fit into the story - only properly lower class person and it makes no difference to the story if he's not there

Oh no! It could be Old Stringer I suppose. His death would free his son up to move to London and pursue his dream of being an architect. Or Lady Denham might suddenly keel over for real, because drinking sea water is actually very bad for you. Or maybe one of the hypochondriac siblings will succumb to an illness that nobody believed was genuinely serious because they were so prone to exaggeration. I doubt if it will be any of the main players.