Sanditon

As Sanditon continues, it’s time to dive into the most British of all traditions: Cricket. This week’s installment revolves around the annual town cricket match, which serves as both an actual game and a social occasion, as well as the reason for most of the characters to be in the same place at the same time. Drama!

In all honesty, we probably should have known that there was no way that Sanditon was going to just let us watch Charlotte Heywood and Sidney Parker banter adorably for the rest of the season and live happily ever after. What is a surprise is how dark and awful this particular setback for their nascent love story turns out to be, as by the end of this hour it seems as though they’re more at odds than they’ve ever been before, with no real resolution in sight.

After an opening pair of installments that left some of us (i.e. me) wondering if I could or did actually enjoy this show, Sanditon’s third episode felt a lot closer to what we normally expect from a Jane Austen drama. Sort of. 

One of the most intriguing aspects of Sanditon, the new Masterpiece drama adapted from the existing scraps of a would-be Jane Austen novel, is that we have no idea where it’s going. At all.

Austen only wrote 11 chapters of this story before she died, which was barely enough time to introduce the major characters, let alone give us any sense of what she had in store for them. On some level, this show is simply very expensive fanfiction. On another, it’s an exciting communal journey we’ve all never shared before – experiencing an Austen story together for the first time. And so far...it's a mixed bag, but one with a lot of potential. 

As most period drama fans probably already know, new Jane Austen drama Sanditon is headed to PBS's Masterpiece this January. And we've got a few reasons why you should give it a look when it does. 

What's coming to the U.S. in British TV in January? Let's run down the biggest titles arriving next month from PBS Passport to BritBox.