Last night I finished Sanditon, and I'm ready for Season 2.
The show was developed by Andrew Davies, who wrote the wonderful 1995 Pride and Prejudice and other adaptations I've enjoyed. His Pride and Prejudice had a certain soap opera quality in his attempts to give Darcy more balance in the narrative, a life beyond the novel, and more sex appeal, making more a romantic comedy that a cvomedy of manners Sanditon takes it one step further.
I felt the first half was pretty much in Jane austen territory but the second half moved up around twenty years into the territory of the heaving bosoms and lust of Wuthering Heights, although Miss Lamb's abduction and reascue reminded me of the 18th century novel Clarissa. Jane Austen was certainly aware of sexual abuse, homosexuality and incest, as she proves in Mansfield Park with the ultra-bizarrer siblings Mary and Henry Crawford, but she never completel;y spells anything out. Davies' screenplay goes over the top with the kinky and tortured of the abused Clara Brereton and Sir Edward Denham. The novel was never written far enough to define exactly what their relationship will be, but Davies decided its a lurid one.
I have to say I enjoyed it, and I am curious to see where Season 2 goes.