The Other Bennet Sister starts tonight on BBC1 8pm

[IwantToRetire]

Seemingly unremarkable and often overlooked, Mary Bennet longs to win her family’s approval.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002qkp3

Is this going to be a spoof or some sort of spin off ?

2nd episode tonight at 8:30

Couldn't see a thread so hope this isn't a duplicate!

Loved this so much.
The illness following the we weather was such a blatant and deliberate rip of Sense and Sensibility. I still lapped it up though.
The London aunt and uncle were such lovely people, I can’t work out where I know Richard Coyle from as he is such a familiar face on the screen but when I Wiki’d him, I don’t think I’ve watched anything he’s been in…but I must have.
Mrs Bennet was just vile. The chat at the end about the pressure to get them all married made me sympathise a little but she was just so very nasty to Mary. Lydia was a chip off the old block but Kitty was much nicer.
I liked Mr Ryder. Completely frivolous with no thought as to how his ‘proposal’ would impact Mary but just seemed like a genuinely nice bloke. Hayward was adorable.
It made me like Mr Collins!

He was Aberforth Dumbledore in Fantastic beasts. Have you watched that?

I’ve not watched the whole thing but I’ve been pottering around whilst the kids have watched so maybe it is that!

I thought Mr Darcy was Lady Catherine’s nephew so wondered why he wouldn’t inherit? Would make sense that her sickly daughter had died although I feel like Mary could have seen a different side to her if she was still alive iyswim.

Would Darcy and Ryder not be cousins if Lady Catherine is Aunt to both 🤔

We may have need of this tea towel!

Mr Darcy is first cousin to Anne Darcy and to Colonel Fitzwilliam (the siblings in the generation above are Lady Anne Darcy, Lady Catherine de Bourg and an unnamed brother). Mr Ryder is a nephew to Lady C but unclear if it's by marriage (she was married to Sir Lewis de Bourg) or if if he's a sibling of Colonel Fitzwilliam or if there's another sibling of the older three.

Lady Catherine nominates Ryder as her heir which is a thing I think you can do (didn't something like that happen to one of Jane Austen's brothers?) but surely cousin Anne must have died. Unless she gained courage from seeing Elizabeth stand up to Lady C ("Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?" etc) and ran off to Italy with a sexy young man, inspiring Ryder to think this was an option?!

Didn’t Col Fitzwilliam mention that he’s a younger brother so knew he’d not inherit hence why he sucked up to Darcy a fair bit?

Im still confused by where Ryder would fit in 🙈😂

I suspect that perhaps the author has not made a full genealogy chart. Maybe one of us should message her and ask 😂.

I have convinced myself in the book that Lady C de B disinherited D'Arcy because he married Elizabeth Bennet.

Cannot remember the intricacies of why Ryder ended up the heir though...

Having rewatched some episodes, I would quite happily run off to Italy for an unconventional life with Ryder. I like men who leap into lakes for no good reason other than showing off for me. (Why yes, I am shallow and obsessed with 1995 P&P)

I did love the expression on Mary’s face when she realised just how ridiculous two men were prepared to make themselves - purely in competition for her.

Cannot remember the intricacies of why Ryder ended up the heir though...

I've just read that Anne ran off with her Dr!

I need to read the book I think, would make sense that she disinherited Darcy because of Elizabeth, Anne ran off with a Dr?!! Amazing.

Surely it was also meant to be a flashback to Colin Firth's wet shirt moment?

I binged this yesterday and this morning and loved it. I did think Mrs B was a bit too harsh but in a way I prefer her being unpleasant rather than a bit of a joke, which is how I see AS's version. I loved Miss Bingley and, even though the Scafell bits were mainly funny until the end, I felt quite sorry for her going up a mountain she didn't want to go up to impress a man who wasn't interested in her. She was as inept as Mary at doing her 'job' of getting a husband and her looks (in this) were not much better and she also lacked Mary's character and charm. I like that she was instrumental in getting Tom and Mary together.

Both Ryder and Heywood were lovely and I loved the lake scene for an updated version of Firth's wet shirt moment, but this time it was two for one. Someone mentioned Mary not being pompous enough, but she did have pompous moments, like when she gave a lecture on honeysuckles when Tom have her one and then had to apologise and thank him. The only thing I didn't quite get was why the Gardiners were quite so invested in Mary - it became like their only purpose in life was to help her get away from her mother which I found a bit odd really.

Two wet shirts 😀

Cross-posted at 11.21.

The Gardiners were good to the girls. Jane stayed a winter with them. They took Lizzie on holiday. They looked after Lydia when she had been found, until she was married from their house. Mary pulled her weight when she was with them. I think they simply felt sorry for the way her mother treated her and they wanted to encourage her to speak up for herself, which she learned to.

That's just maths.

One Colin Firth OG Mr Darcy wet shirt = any two other blokes in a wet shirt.

Just going to rewatch '95 P&P brb.

Dare I say that Colin in his fencing gear was hotter than fishy Colin of the stream. No, I daren't because this is about TOBS and I'm de-railing.

They were both much tastier than grumpy Mr Darcy of the newspaper! Although I felt for him.

I haven't rtft so I'm sure someone has mentioned it. I loved the nods to all the previous incarnations of P&P: the wet shirts, the flash of Mr Heywood's hand flexing after taking his leave of Mary, the carrying of Mary out of the storm (ok, that S&S, but you get my point).
Such a great series.

In TOBS book Anne de Bourgh marries someone her mother disapproves of, which is why she makes Ryder her heir. In P&P I think JA says that Lady CdeV uses her money to keep the family in line; Darcy has enough money of his own so she has no power over him.

if I was Lizzie I’d have put Mrs Bennett in a dower house on the far reaches of the estate with her hideous dog and a companion.

I’m probably a bit slow but have just realised the lady who played Mary’s maid was the original Mary in the 1995 version.

It did look like it was going that way, starting with the hiring of the companion!

I will check in my copy of P&P later but I think it says something like, Lady Catherine, thinking it advisable to retain visiting rights at Pemberley (decides to be polite to Elizabeth).

Of course there were were people of colour. But would they have been welcomed in the soirees of that social class though? It was a very restricted and hierarchical world. Darcy caused a bit of a scandal by marrying as low as Lizzy and she was from an upper middle class white family.
They were petrified of sunshine and getting brown skin. Would they have accepted inter racial courting and mixed race children?

Solicitors and even doctors were looked down on as it was a "profession". Very very wealthy people with "earned money" were also looked down on. So it wasnt just money that got you a free pass. It was background.
Would the mothers really have accepted their daughters hooking up with people of colour in the marriage market?

Brits in India and everywhere else they colonised, were not famed for integrating and treating the native people as equals. British wealth was built on slavery, which relies on the belief that certain races, usually brown ones, are inferior. I cant imagine they treated Indian immigrants in England as their equals or suitable matches for their daughters or more importantly, sons and heirs.