SummaryPD James's bestselling sequel to Pride and Prejudice is dramatised in this three part drama featuring Matthew Rhys, Jenna Coleman and Trevor Eve in which the Darcy's are preparing for their annual ball when the Wickham's unexpected arrival brings murder to Pemberley.
SummaryPD James's bestselling sequel to Pride and Prejudice is dramatised in this three part drama featuring Matthew Rhys, Jenna Coleman and Trevor Eve in which the Darcy's are preparing for their annual ball when the Wickham's unexpected arrival brings murder to Pemberley.
Death Comes to Pemberley has the extra advantage of being perfectly cast and extremely entertaining, even for those who might need a Jane Austen refresher course.
Death Comes to Pemberley works so well because the characters are so perfectly realized. Affairs, unwed pregnancies, and murder all abound, but at the heart of the series is the story of a marriage.
The crime (and the crime solving) can’t hold a candle to the delight of watching Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy drift apart and then back together in a refrain of their story of obstinate love--a task Rhys and Maxwell Martin acquit themselves of quite well.
Unfortunately, the mystery isn't very gripping, and there's precious little wit in the proceedings, which come off like a CBS crime procedural dressed in Jane Austen clothing.
The solution to whodunit ends satisfactorily and in keeping with the book. The leads, though, display little chemistry, and that’s something Jane Austen’s sensibilities would never have allowed.