I was not impressed with the second season debut of Sanditon, and after watching the second episode, while I am more resigned to the series, it still doesn't spark of Jane Austen. Rather than following one main character (and a colorful cast of secondary characters) and a major story arc, rather we follow about 27 minor characters, none of whom are who they were last season, and 42 minor subplots. It is more a 'who's who' of Sanditon than a Jane Austen novel. I'm glad our gay love story is taking off (totally Austen!), as no other romance is even in view. I don't like Miss Lambe, in this day and age I suppose that makes me racist, but it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with personality, personally I don't care if she's human, martian, or a fairy, she's a spoiled, immature, sulky, pessimistic, strong willed, impudent, cynical and selfish little beast, sadly I like Lydia Bennet out of the 1995 BBC classic Pride and Prejudice far more, at least she wasn't mean and was a little bit of fun, vulgar though it be, and added energy and zest to the story, even if her strident whining and eternal 'poor mes' drove one to distraction. And apparently it is 'raining men' as every eligible female has a bevy of beaus when everyone knows that in classic Austen style, 'more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a partner.'
We've already strayed into Jane Eyre, now we are adding a bit of Frances Burney (an author Austen was rather fond of and probably was a major inspiration to her own writing), as apparently Tom Parker is developing a gambling addiction and the somewhat intriguing Colonel is now encouraging it, ugh! All the characters have no character, they have become mere caricatures of themselves, devolving into mere vices or habits rather than complex and deep individuals. Poor Arthur (who I rather liked, along with his sister Diana, hypochondriacs though they be) is merely the token gay man, his burgeoning personality lost to stereotype. I never liked the Hankins, as they've never been anything but stereotype: nice but bumbling people who are behind the times and in the way of progress and happiness to all comers, at least Mr. Collins was amusing if odious, they are only annoying with just enough heart that you can really dislike them but there's not enough there to attract or keep your interest, sort of like ecru walls and beige carpet: universally acceptable but nobody really likes it or even looks twice at it.
The former main character, Charlotte, is no longer audacious, outspoken, bold, caring, sweet, fun loving, tries to do the right thing even when she makes mistakes, she's just a bland, quiet little mouse that has decided life isn't worth living any longer and she's just going to exist through the next few seasons? And then we have Clara reappearing, perhaps a nod to Sense and Sensibility, except the abandoned and pregnant mistress never shows up to add yet another unneeded subplot. Edward is a less than stellar Wickham stand-in, he's so stiff and boring and tedious and dour and one dimensional, at least you sort of liked Wickham, even after he was absolutely disgraced, I join Mr. Bennet in rejoicing that he has found himself a son-in-law even more absurdly baffling than Mr. Collins!
Lady Denham pretty much carries the show, which is a pretty heavy load for the poor old girl. Lord Byron (or whatever the artist's name is) parades around lauding France just to irk people, courting Miss Lambe's fortune and providing a love interest for Arthur? Yeah, I don't get it either, at least in a good Austen novel if one was after someone's fortune, one didn't spend half one's time courting someone else, at least until Miss King's uncle whisked her off to Liverpool. But apparently everyone is taking Elizabeth's courtship of Mr. Darcy and turning it into an object lesson: disdain his every word, insult him, and if he persists, marry him? This seems to be the case for both Miss Lambe and Lady Babbington and is rather aggravating while Charlotte's sister is off making eyes at everybody and willing to fall in love with a rock if it would but ask her to dance and spout a little Cowper, Byron and Arthur have the deepest relationship of the whole bunch and I'm worried about Arthur getting hurt, what a strange show!
The sad reality is, I really don't like or care for any of the new versions of the characters. The scenery and costumes are gorgeous, the music is great, but I really don't care if Miss Lambe flies off with Peter Pan or shacks up with Byron at this point, while the brooding Charlotte/Jane Eyre has yet to discover the mad wife in the attic, but maybe Rev. Hankins will ask her to marry him and go to India as a missionary and save us all the nuisance of both, and then Colonel what's his bucket will follow in vengeful pursuit? That sounds like a far more interesting story than anything brewing at the moment. This is more cheap regency romance with woke undertones than it is Jane Austen spin-off, and that's too bad, because it was starting off as a deep, thoughtful, colorful story and characters, now all I can do is listen to the music and take in the local color and wish the characters were equally as vibrant, instead of two dimension, faded cartoons of themselves. But maybe it is a good cautionary moral tale for our age, wherein we pride ourselves on our extreme individualism only to let our tribe, race, gender, economic status, interests, politics, whatever define our character, rather than to be the unique individuals we are, we slip quietly and gently into the stereotypical box defined for us, we have no individuality save what mere statistics grants us. Even the renegade Lord Byron is a stereotype. Austen was a master of character, the writes of Sanditon, mere caricature.
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