Death Comes To Pemberley

DVD cover image for the BBC adaptation of P.D. James' Death Comes to Pemberley. Image source: themoviedb.com

Death Comes To Pemberley. BBC Drama Productions, 2013. 180 minutes (3 episodes).

I am not a fan of fan fiction, nor, generally, of modern-day "sequels" to literary classics. (Modern-day reimaginings—for example, Angela Carter's retellings of the fairy tales of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm from the point of view of their female protagonists in The Bloody Chamber, or Jean Rhys' retelling of Jane Eyre from the point of view of Rochester's mistreated Jamaican wife in Wide Sargasso Sea, or Percival Everett's retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of the escaped slave Jim in James—can be a different story.) While I'm not proud of these prejudices, please take them into consideration when reading my comments below.

Death Comes To Pemberley is, as the title implies, a sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice; Pemberley is, of course, Mr. Darcy's Derbyshire estate. In her 2011 novel of the same title, which is the basis of this three-episode 2013 BBC series, P.D. James concocts a murder mystery that takes place roughly six years after the events of Pride and Prejudice. The scoundrel George Wickham is the prime suspect (of course!). [1]

In Death Comes To Pemberley, Wickham (Matthew Goode) is travelling to Pemberley uninvited, along with his wife and his friend Captain Denny (Tom Pemberton). Wickham's wife is, of course, Elizabeth Darcy's sister Lydia (the delightful Jenna Coleman).

Jenna Coleman as Lydia Bennet Wickham in Death Comes to Pemberley, Episode 1.

In the carriage Denny and Wickham are arguing, and at the peak of the disagreement, Denny demands that the driver halt, jumps out, and runs off into the woods. Wickham pursues him. Two gunshots are heard, and then Wickham is discovered next to Denny's dead body, crying out "I killed him" and "It's my fault."

A murder investigation led by Sir Selwyn Hardcastle (Trevor Eve) finds that all the evidence points to Wickham's guilt. But as we know from time-honored crime fiction conventions—spoiler alert! but not really—the obvious suspect is never the killer. And although the initial suspect may be punished for their appearance of guilt, in the end the real murderer must be found and the social order restored.

Meanwhile, there's a love triangle complicating matters: Darcy's cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam (Tom Ward and his chin) loves Darcy's younger sister Georgiana (Eleanor Tomlinson), but she's in love with barrister Henry Alveston (James Norton), who winds up defending Wickham in court.

Eleanor Tomlinson as Georgiana Darcy in Episode 1.

The wonderful actress Anna Maxwell Martin plays Elizabeth.

Anna Maxwell Martin as Elizabeth Bennet Darcy in Episode 1.

We'll watch pretty much anything in which Maxwell Martin appears; we can highly recommend the BBC productions of Bleak House (2005, based on the Charles Dickens novel), North and South (2004, based on the Elizabeth Gaskell novel), and South Riding (2011, based on the Winifred Holtby novel). Her performance as Cassandra Austen is one of the best things about the at-times-problematic Becoming Jane (2007), and the post-WWII mystery series The Bletchley Circle (2012-14) has been highly recommended to us. She's a brilliant choice to play Elizabeth, who is the one who ultimately solves the murder (of  course!). 

There's just one nagging detail: six years after the events of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth would be 26; Maxwell Martin is clearly a decade older than her character. Matthew Rhys also seems older than Fitzwilliam Darcy, who would be 33 or 34:

Matthew Rhys as Darcy in Episode 1.

Alexandra Moen has the opposite problem, as her Jane Bingley looks younger than Elizabeth, even though Jane is the elder sister:

Jane Bennet Bingley (Alexandra Moen) and Elizabeth in Episode 2.

But age discrepancies could be overlooked if it weren't for other jarring details. Chief among these is the language placed in the mouths of the characters by writer Juliette Towhidi, which is often anachronistic and lacking in Austenesque wit and subtlety. This is especially problematic in the flashback scenes to the action of Pride and Prejudice, where Towhidi supplies her own Cliff Notes paraphrase of Austen's brilliant dialogue rather than have the characters speak Austen's words.

Elizabeth and Darcy in Episode 2, in a flashback to the scene of his first proposal in Pride and Prejudice: "Can you not see the insult in that?"

Some other incongruities: it turns out that Wickham has been visiting the grounds of Pemberley regularly, and under a false identity has seduced and impregnated a housemaid, Louisa Bidwell (Nichola Burley). But Wickham, of course, was the son of Pemberley's steward and grew to adulthood on the estate as Darcy's constant companion. He is well known among the servants and tenants; how could he possibly frequent the neighborhood of Pemberley under an assumed name and not be immediately recognized?

Matthew Goode as George Wickham in a flashback to Pride and Prejudice in Episode 1.

Someone else who plays a key role in the mystery is Mrs. Younge (Mariah Gale), the former governess of Darcy's sister Georgiana. In Pride and Prejudice Mrs. Younge colluded with Wickham in his attempt to elope with the 15-year-old Georgiana. In Death Comes To Pemberley Mrs. Younge is revealed to be—spoiler alert!—Wickham's sister. But again, how is this possible? She would also have grown up on the Pemberley estate; how could Darcy not know her immediately, or be ignorant of her relation to Wickham?

Finally, Darcy and Elizabeth are at odds through most of the series; Darcy is characterized more as the brooding, prideful, imperious man he is at the beginning of Pride and Prejudice, and not as the chastened, more self-aware and open character he becomes by the end of the novel. After six years of living with Elizabeth in harmony, would he really have reverted to his earlier self, whatever provocation his brother-in-law Wickham might provide?

Midway through the third episode all is made right between Darcy and Elizabeth, and they have a lovely moment of conjugal reconciliation. Unfortunately this is immediately followed by a bedroom scene. While it's relatively inexplicit, it's utterly unnecessary. As I said to my partner, "It's like watching your parents have sex."

Enough carping. Jenna Coleman, who played the young Queen Victoria in the excellent ITV series Victoria (2016-19), is wonderful in the role of the pleasure-loving flirt Lydia Wickham. Matthew Goode nicely suggests Wickham's highly mixed character, nine parts blackguard to one part brave soldier with his own peculiar sense of honor (which evidently does not extend to women). And of course the costumes, sets and locations provide copious eye-candy, along with visual allusions to the brilliant 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth and Colin Firth as Darcy.

Chatsworth House as Darcy's estate Pemberley in Episode 2.

Whether those allurements, along with Maxwell Martin's Elizabeth, are sufficient to counterbalance the series' multiple implausibilities, incongruities and annoyances will depend on the viewer.

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1. During his inquest and trial, much is made of Wickham's military service in Ireland in 1798, where the British forces suppressed the Irish Rebellion and defeated the uprising's French allies. During this campaign, Wickham saves Captain Denny's life on the battlefield. These references to Wickham's military service against the Irish and French in  Death Comes to Pemberley situate the events of Pride and Prejudice in the year of its original composition, 1797, rather than in the year or two prior to its publication in January 1813. So both the novel and series of Death Comes to Pemberley are set six years after 1797, in 1803. 
   
   However, Austen scholars Frank MacKinnon, R.W. Chapman and, later, Ellen Moody, examined the dates specified by Austen in Pride and Prejudice, and have determined that the novel is set in 1811–12, corresponding to the time that Jane Austen revised the manuscript of First Impressions and sold it to publisher Thomas Egerton as Pride and Prejudice. If the original novel's timeline had been followed, it would place the action of Death Comes to Pemberley in 1818. It's not clear why James makes this 15-year shift of time period—couldn't Wickham have partially redeemed his character on the field at Waterloo?