Welcome to all the new (and delurking) visitors to AustenBlog! We’re really enjoying the lively discussion of the new adaptation of Persuasion. As a compare and contrast, here’s the opinion and discussion thread from the original broadcast in the UK last year.

Fellow-ette is liveblogging each of the broadcasts, starting with Persuasion.

9:45 Me: “Where have we seen Wenthworth before?” My boyfriend, “In an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog?” Snark. UPDATE: True Answer: He played St. John Rivers, and Jane Eyre dumped him for Rochester/Ciaran Hinds in the ‘97 Jane Eyre. Which is weird because he’s now lost out to Ciaran in two (count’em, TWO) separate categories.

Ouch!

The New Yorker has a rather snarky article (but snarky in a way that makes us roll our eyes–we’ve heard it all before, ripped bodices yada yada yada) It’s mostly interesting for one of the first reviews of Miss Austen Regrets.

And now we come to “Miss Austen Regrets,” a ghastly misfire—one does enjoy finding a use for that phrase now and again—which presents Austen in the same reductive way that is often resorted to when an inadequate imagination sets about dramatizing an interesting woman’s life. Austen comes across as witty, disappointed, proud, smart, a symbol, a cautionary tale, a heroine, a loser—everything but a person. (It’s a Judy Davis role, played here by Olivia Williams.)

Jane Austen inspires girls for many reasons, one of which is that they sense that, as a Times piece about “Becoming Jane” put it last year, an Austen heroine is “not afraid to be the smartest person in the room.” Any girl who watches “Miss Austen Regrets” could only be very, very afraid of such a fate.

Hmm! We’ll see in a few weeks.

The Washington Post has an article anticipating the new adaptations, with the usual commentary about “purists:”

Fans of Austen constantly argue over which of her books is best, as do fans of the screen adaptations. Purists will be picky — arguments erupted recently about whether it was remotely feasible to ever see an Austen heroine dancing a waltz.

Most likely not, if you were wondering.

Kate on MSN’s TV Blog wonders why Jane Austen can’t be more like Gossip Girl?

So, basically, I think Persuasion was ridiculously abridged and made caricatures of its characters. Why couldn’t it have been more like”Gossip Girl”? “Gossip Girl,” seriously? Well, it’s another adaptation of a book in the same vein: manners, treachery, boys, clothes. The pilot of “Gossip Girl” did an excellent job adapting the manners and mores of the books into a one hour drama, and the show has continued to be excellent. It’s not a 100% faithful adaptation, but maybe that’s what makes it great.

Never having seen Gossip Girl, we have no idea.

Hollywood Today has an interesting take on last night’s TV faceoff between Persuasion and The Sarah Connor Chronicles:

Under Terminator canon, the answer seems obvious. In ‘T2: Judgement Day,’ Arnold says, “I am a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.” But, is it prudent to trust the word of a murderous machine? Maybe not. A robot is a machine that resembles a human being and is often subject to another’s will. A cyborg is a human being whose functions are controlled or aided by mechanical or electrical systems. The Borg are clearly cyborgs, augmented humans under collective self-control. Terminator, on the other hand, is an autonomous robot controlled by Skynet. If the external living tissue of Terminator qualify it as a cyborg, then the external mental control exerted over Ann Elliott’s actions in ‘Persuasion’ should qualify her as a robot. However, ‘Persuasion’ is far from being the story of a robot.

Have to agree with that! Thanks to Alert Janeite Lisa for several of these links.

We have lots of other non-movie stuff to post, which we will do tonight, so stay tuned, Janeites! And a reminder: we’re really busy so the spam filter is freaking out a little. Be patient if you get caught–we are keeping an eye on things and will get you out eventually!

So the broadcast is over in the UK, and the Telegraph has a last bit of commentary.

Elinor’s wordless expression of pure joy also confirmed that Morahan has now become the latest British actress – after Anna Maxwell Martin in Bleak House and Lisa Dillon in Cranford – to have mastered one of the trickiest of all acting assignments: how to give an utterly gripping performance as somebody flawlessly nice.

On the whole, the rest of the cast were equally strong, especially Charity Wakefield as a believably sexy Marianne. The only false notes were struck by Daisy Haggard playing Anne Steele as if she was a caricature by Dickens, not Austen – and David Morrissey’s peculiar reading of Colonel Brandon as a tight-lipped Scouser.

In the end, this Sense and Sensibility was perhaps brilliantly competent rather than surpassingly brilliant. Nevertheless, it still proved easily good enough to get the costume-drama year off to a hugely enjoyable start.

We’ll see it on this side of the pond soon enough!