The Emma Corrin and Olivia Coleman castings alone kill this for me.
Olivia Coleman I could probably force myself to endure, though she really does get on my tits. Her gurning, faux-working class schtick is not for me. She's the Danny Dyer of period dramas.
But Emma Corrin as Lizzie? No, no, no.
I didn't like Emma in The Crown, when everyone else was raving about her portrayal of Princess Diana. I thought she played her like a frightened goldfish, and tried too hard to recreate Diana's mannerisms. It didn't feel natural. You could sense the effort throughout. She didn't feel like she was Diana for me - she was always an actress doing her best Diana impression, and by the end of her stint in the show, I couldn't suspend my disbelief at all. She was supposed to be a mother of two, but she looked like a teenager playing dress up! The final scene, where her face hardens in resolution and you're supposed to get chills, just made me laugh. It was like watching a hamster stare down the camera and try to be intimidating. Awful stuff.
I just don't think she has any range as an actress. She's cripplingly insecure off-screen, and she carries that through to her performances. She gets away with it when the character is supposed to be a bit of a broken bird and share those mental health struggles. But Lizzie Bennett is not that kind of character. At all. By any stretch of the imagination. She's supposed to be self-assured and emotionally stable. I know I sound cruel, but I really don't think Emma Corrin is capable of playing a woman like that. Nor do I think she's capable of separating herself from the character she's supposed to be playing. She'll turn Elizabeth into a waifish neurotic, as unwatchable in her own way as Dakota Johnson's smug Millennial, wannabe-Fleabag rendition of Anne Elliot.