Why I stopped watching The Other Bennet Sister

With apologies to Aled, my former classmate who’s in the cast.  

When I first heard there was going to be a TV adaptation of The Other Bennet Sister, a Pride and Prejudice spin-off, I already had apprehensions: it’s about Mary, the most boring of the Bennet sisters. This is how Jane Austen describes her: 

“… After a song or two, and before [Elizabeth] could reply to the entreaties of several that she would sing again, she was eagerly succeeded at the instrument by her sister Mary, who having, in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments, was always impatient for display.

Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached. Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had been listened to with much more pleasure, though not playing half so well…” (ch.6) 

But Janice Hadlow wrote a novel focusing on her, so I thought maybe something interesting could be done about the character of Mary: she’s the only plain one in the family; she’s the odd one out between two pairs of sisters (Jane – Elizabeth and Kitty – Lydia). 

In the end, I only watched 2 (out of 10 episodes). The Other Bennet Sister, I think, has 3 main problems. 

First of all, in Pride and Prejudice, Mary’s not only plain and boring, but also conceited, priggish, and rather oblivious; in the series The Other Bennet Sister (I haven’t read the book), Mary is bookish, socially awkward, more likeable than Jane Austen’s character, and constantly bullied by her own family. At the beginning, it feels as though they want to turn her into Fanny Price. Almost everyone in the series—at least in the first 2 episodes—is mean-spirited: everyone makes fun of Mary; Mrs Bennet treats her cruelly and constantly puts her down; Caroline Bingley mocks her before others, in a way that a genteel woman would not; Charlotte Lucas, now her friend instead of Elizabeth’s, becomes two-faced and “steals” Mr Collins behind her back; even Elizabeth, who in Jane Austen’s novel only looks at Mr Bennet when Mary embarrasses herself in public, now insensitively says to Mr Bennet “Papa, this has gone too far, and if you don’t step in, I will” when Mary can see her. All these characters are changed beyond recognition. Even if we pretend that The Other Bennet Sister is its own universe and separate from Pride and Prejudice—ignoring that the series passes over most plot points of Jane Austen’s novel, expecting the audience to be familiar with the story—the changes are terrible because they make the characters one-dimensional and extremely unpleasant. Elizabeth, described several times as quick-witted, here displays no wit. 

As the characters are all one-dimensional—Mrs Bennet especially is not only annoying but cruel and obnoxious—the series feels one-note. Perhaps it’s going to improve from the third episode, but I’m not interested enough to continue. 

Not only so, the series constantly gets on my nerves as it’s written by people—native speakers—who don’t know proper English. The Other Bennet Sister portrays Mary Bennet as an awkward, pedantic girl who corrects a guy during a dance for saying “less” when he should say “fewer”, and yet Mary says “My mother is concerned for my sisters and I.” These errors take me out of the story. 

(I’m not even going to talk about the racial aspect of the casting). 

Now some of you might say I should not dismiss a whole series after watching only 1/5 of it and perhaps it would get better, but I’m going to say that the first 2 episodes (at least) are very crude and very silly. Not a fan.