okay here I am with the first nugget of wisdom from my Nerd Notebook
to me it seems like a lot of the character is being lost for no good reason at all
eg Mrs Dashwood seems to be a very sensible sort and she isn't - she jumps to conclusions and makes rash judgements on people and is more similar to Marianne than to Elinor, which is important as the book progresses
for example when Mrs John Dashwood is telling her that Edward should marry someone rich/ influential, she doesn't say "Thank you Fanny" like a polite person, she says something really rude and strops off, and decides to begone from Norland immediately. I don't get why they felt that needed to be changed, unless they just couldn't think of anything rude so thought 'thank you' would have to do
and Marianne's opinion of Col Brandon isn't based on him being too old at 35 to be interested in her - which let's face it we might think ourselves (and don't get me started on how David Morrissey is actually 43 which is too old for the part) but she thinks even a woman of 27 is too old to be in love and if such a woman did get married it would be because she needed security, and such a marriage would only be of 'convenience' because they were both so past it to feel any passion at all
I don't get why they are making such fun characters, in all their dizziness and nonsense, seem more sensible. That seems against good drama to me
oh and Edward is not handsome. He is shy and his manners become pleasing as you get to know him
he does not sweep in on a horse looking all blue-eyed and beautiful and saying wonderfully witty things and being generally gorgeous