Emma - Masterpiece Theatre

Well part two and part three (inexplicably) were on last night. How great to get two episodes when you're only expecting one. Nifty. That said, since I'll have to watch episode three next week :), this will just be my thoughts about last night's episode. Frank is still only just tolerable -- just. And Mrs. Elton (Christina Cole) is just so smug .. ugh. But that's what she's supposed to be ... base, vulgar, common, nothing to recommend her excepting she as somewhere near ten thousand pounds. That said, the film seems to perfectly match Mr. Elton and his wife. They are a perfect combination of smugness, self satisfaction, and superiority where none exists as I have seen lately. The problem is she's a comic character and this just makes her look mean -- nuance is lost (boo). Mr Knightley's firm character reappears as he denounced the surprise gift to Jane Fairfax and in his calmly telling Mrs. Elton to bugger off (which is really what he should have said...). Still a fan of Tamsin Greig as Miss Bates. She annoying (and that's the point), but somehow is still a feeling creature - even more so than in the book. I wish there had been more of Mr. John Knightley (Dan Fredenburgh) - his character is worth the time -- one of the few people in the book that wasn't afraid by convention or otherwise to say what he thought about things. Laura Pyper is just not pretty enough to be Jane Fairfax -- if she's held up, as implied, as Emma's rival of accomplishment and beauty -- it's just not working for me. Emma 1996 (Paltrow/Northam) with Polly Walker as Jane Fairfax - that worked. This time ... not so much.


We'll see how it ends up (as if we don't already know).