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Death Comes To Pemberley

Almost 20 years ago, America was absolutely gripped by Jane Austen mania. The Pride and Prejudice miniseries starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth came to America, Amy Heckerling turned Emma into Clueless, and Emma Thompson won an Oscar for adapting Sense and Sensibility. That’s not all, though. Pride and Prejudice inspired Bridget Jones’s Diary, both the BBC and Miramax produced traditional adaptations of Emma, and lesser known titles like Mansfield Park and Persuasion were also adapted for the screen.

That’s a lot of Jane Austen — but does America still actually care?

Yes, and no.

Jane Austen has never left popular culture, but her influence has mutated into something different. In the last ten years, there’s been an avalanche of Jane Austen spin-offs and reboots. There are dozens of books about Elizabeth and Darcy’s marriage, Hollywood is making a movie based on the satiric bestseller, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the YouTube generation has gotten in on the action with the popular Lizzie Bennet Diaries (and its sister series, Emma Approves). We’re living in an era where every adaptation of Austen is a pastiche of her world. There’s got to be some modern twist. So, Jane Austen is still popular, but only if it’s not presented as traditional Jane Austen.

This Sunday, Death Comes to Pemberley comes to PBS, and as a Jane Austen fan, I’m really curious to see what American audiences will make of it. The big twist of Death Comes To Pemberley is that it’s Pride and Prejudice meets a murder mystery. Captain Denny, a lesser known character from the original story, is found dead on Mr. Darcy’s estate. The main suspect is Mr. Wickham, and Elizabeth Bennet takes it upon herself to solve the murder. Fun, right?

Full disclosure: I’ve already seen Death Comes to Pemberley. I’m a Jane Austen nut. That means that if there’s a new take on Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, I am bound by honor to seek it out and watch it. It’s enjoyable enough, and The Good Wife’s Matthew Goode and Doctor Who’s Jenna Coleman give absolutely inspired takes on the rakish Mr. Wickham and his tittering bride, Lydia Bennet. The miniseries’ blessing and curse, however, is that it leans on the clichés of Austen’s universe. Matthew Rhys plays Mr. Darcy as a stoic, yet hot, rich guy who can come off a little bit like an asshole, and Anna Maxwell Martin plays Elizabeth as an intelligent and stubborn heroine who isn’t sure how Mr. Darcy feels about her. We get love triangles and beautiful shots of country houses. There’s a subplot that suggests that Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage is rocky.

Audiences are supposed to be shocked by the mystery’s multiple plot twist. The thing that surprised me the most about Death Comes to Pemberley was how bored I was with it. I had to ask myself, “If I’m a massive Jane Austen nerd, and I’m getting tired of Jane Austen reboots, then how does the casual Jane Austen fan feel?”

In recent years, Jane Austen adaptations (and themed movies) haven’t really gripped America the way they did in the past. There was a marked disinterest in last summer’s Austen satire, Austenland, and as good as the 2009 BBC adaptation of Emma was, both British and American audiences weren’t tuning in. The obvious exceptions to this are the aforementioned Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and those two adaptations that made Austen’s tale accessible for audiences that weren’t as familiar with the story: zombie fans and teens.

America will never be completely over Jane Austen. The love affair runs too deep. Even when we’re not watching a traditional adaptation of her works, we can track every romantic comedy’s inspiration back to one of her stories. America might be tired of, however, the Regency costumes and polite manners. We might be over the predictable plots and courtly conventions. We might need zombies, and monsters, and twitter accounts to connect to the stories.

Or maybe we just need a fresh take on it that doesn’t involve a crazy twist?

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Photos: Everett Collection