Lost in Austen: Part One

"Is she mad, in a bonnet or back in time?"

ITV clearly think they have a huge hit on their hands here, based on the constant promotion it's been getting in their ad breaks and across their chat shows and morning TV thingies. And it's easy to see why, considering the mix of formulas they've concocted.

Period drama? Always popular -- just look at the recent success of series like Cranford and Lark Rise to Candleford, as well as innumerable others in the history of television.

Jane Austen? Especially popular -- look at the esteem in which the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice is still held, the financial and critical success of the recent Pride & Prej film, and again the success of ITV's even more recent adaptations of Austen's three lesser-done novels; not to mention the two biopics in the past year (or so), Becoming Jane and Miss Austen Regrets.

Time travel? Most definitely popular -- look at the ratings-dominating success of the revived Doctor Who, the more moderate but not irrelevant success of Primeval, and, most pertinent to this example, the critical and ratings success of Life On Mars and it's sequel/spin-off, Ashes to Ashes.

Put all these together -- with a dash of Bridget Jones for good measure -- and you get Lost in Austen, which mixes a cut-price Austen-esque cast (this is ITV rather than the BBC, after all) and all the popular tropes of traditional costume dramas, with time travel tomfoolery and jokes about reality TV and pubic hair styles (I kid you not). Plot-wise, it comes across a bit like they wanted to do an adaptation of Pride & Prej, but thought it was either too soon (considering the film was all of three years ago, and that felt hot on the heels of the then-10-years-old TV series) or that an ITV audience wouldn't be all that interested, so have given it a big twist.

After the first, largely entertaining, episode (of four), it remains to be seen if it can pass beyond being a LOM rip-off / yet another Austen adaptation to become something of its own.