Previously on Death Comes to Pemberley: Episode 2.

There’s many different ways to phrase Occam’s Razor, but this one from the first series of Luther, I’ve always liked best:

All things being equal, the simplest solution is the best solution.

If we do believe that Wickham did not kill Captain Denny, then there must have been someone else in the woods. And the only people in the woods, at that time of night, were the Bidwells. There we are, then. Continue reading →

Previously on Death Comes to Pemberley: Episode 1.

Good grief! As Pemberley falls into a state of uncertainty and disarray, Darcy reverts back to his Lord of the Manor persona and drags Lizzie and Georgiana into misery on his coattails. In case you missed it, the subtext beneath Lizzie and Darcy’s (understatedly) heated arguments runs as follows:

No, poor Georgie can’t marry the man she loves, we’ve only just finished paying the mortgage on the house. And no, Lizzie, just because I married you against my public duty and against the great tradition of Pemberley, that doesn’t mean a stupid stray comment from your vapid sister Lydia won’t send me reeling, totally believing that you only married me for my money and the frankly massive library on the second floor.

I say! Continue reading →

When I checked my blog stats earlier while preparing for Death Comes to Pemberley, I noticed that someone has found my blog by typing “death pemberley utter shite” into a search engine. Something like this has happened before, with By Any Means, months ago, and I was just as amused today as I was back then. While I have decidedly not used these words in conjunction and in the right order, I must have judged some show or episode as utter shite before, at some point down the line… (ah, found it: whoever wrote the query ended up on a rather scornful review of a Season 3 episode of Suits.)

Be that as it may, it’s never quite reassuring to discover something like that just before you’re going to watch the aforementioned period adaptation. I shall therefore put us all out of our misery and tell you up-front that it’s not utter shite. It’s not great, either, though. It’s a bit… well, frankly — having seen other, brilliant and engaging period literature adaptations in BBC tradition — it’s a bit dull. Continue reading →