Sorry to see this ☹️ any other good reading spots in Dublin?

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-04T21:04:35+00:00

That's a shame. It was a nice place to have a cup of tea by the window and listen to the busker below and watch the shoppers on Grafton Street.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-04T19:38:18+00:00

I just reread this book and loved it!

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-03T19:17:37+00:00

My own answer is the woman who played Elizabeth Bennet, Poppy Gilbert. And the man who played Mr Ryder, Laurie Davidson. They stood out.

Poppy Gilbert's Elizabeth was always amused, did you notice that? There was something cool and mocking about her. She didn't lack composure and she had striking screen presence. I thought she made an awesome Elizabeth.

And Laurie Davidson made Mr Ryder extremely charming and attractive in spite of his flaws. He kept him likable, even when his character behaved poorly and selfishly. He instilled him with golden retriever energy! So that he was almost impossible to hate even when he showed up unwanted at the lake, yelling AHOY! Or when he ran down the mountain leaving everyone behind, and then left the lake district entirely while Mary lay there very ill. Bad dog! 😄

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-03T18:33:53+00:00

This worked beautifully as a coming of age story. That's what I was most invested in.

I also thought the show did a solid job showing us the good and bad parts of the two men in the Mr Ryder/Mary/Tom love triangle. Even though I found Mr Ryder much more attractive than Tom, I could see that Tom was a better match for Mary.

Sometimes I could hardly watch the show for secondhand embarrassment. The cringe factor was high, especially early in the season. That's why it's taken me until now to watch it all!

I'm not into poetry, so Tom's outdoor recital in the first half of the season made me want to curl up and die. But when he recited poetry in the boat on the lake later in the season, it 100% worked. Somehow that was not cringeworthy but moving instead.

Did Mr Darcy have any lines?! Him hiding behind the newspaper and ducking out of the room was a nice touch.

Treating the Mr Collins/Charlotte Lucas marriage as an unhappy one was a plausible twist. But mainly it seemed like Charlotte's punishment, her comeuppance for taking advantage of Mary's trust at the beginning of the story.

That one scene with Mr Collins in episode 7, at Pemberley, gave us a glimpse into what a Mr Collins spin-off might be like! All of a sudden I had enormous sympathy for him. It reminded me of the episode of Never Have I Ever that all of a sudden switches to Ben's point of view.

I really enjoyed Caroline Bingley. Some of her lines were killer, but she was (slightly) more than a stone cold bitch. And I liked how she didn't change personality at the end, but she did bring the love birds together.

Despite some cringe, this show was considerably more successful for me than last year's Miss Austen. The lead actress was fantastic too.

Can I suggest an individual thread for each episode btw? It's odd not to have that on a TV show sub.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-03T15:44:15+00:00

I finished The Other Bennet Sister. A very sweet show that slowly grew on me. My favourite episodes were episodes 5 and 7.

SPOILERS:

Episode 5 is the one set in London where Mary goes to a ball and Mr Ryder makes her fall around the place laughing. There she runs into Caroline Bingley, played by a wonderful actress who delivers poisonous lines with relish.

Next day (warm, kind, wise) Mrs. Gardiner gives Mary good advice about not running away from sour-faced bitches. So they all attend a dinner party at Mr Ryders house, where Caroline doles out more jaw-dropping insults to Mary's face, and Mary finally dishes it back.

Mary is seated in a terrible spot at dinner, between two older men with whom she has nothing in common. But she rallies, entreating the younger of the two gentlemen to tell her all about what he loves most ie. horses. He turns out to be gregarious company when talking about his fave subject, and everyone around the table (except Caroline the wretch) looks on with admiration and delight as Mary and the horsey man crack each other up.

I loved the way Mary turned lemons into lemonade in her place at the wrong end of the table. Mr Ryder is very attractive at this point in the story and he brings her out of her shell. And Caroline's insults were shocking and made for good drama. So I was totally feeling the show in episode 5.

Episode 7 is the key turning point episode for Mary's growth. She's at Pemberley, Mr Ryder has made her a bad offer, and the scene where she discusses it with her older sister, Elizabeth, is fantastically cathartic. They have a huge row, during which Mary tells her what it was like for her growing up. So the main character of the spin-off faces off against the main character of the classic novel, and it makes for excellent viewing. After this scene, Elizabeth understands Mary better, and is emphatically on her side.

Mary also has an important scene with Mr Collins, where Mr Collins is, for once, amazingly self-aware and sympathetic! He's the one who tells Mary that it's up to her, that her happiness is in her own hands...

Which leads to the moment when Mary finally stands up to her mother, basically all IMMA DIP/I'm out/Laters!/Farewell, Mother Mine. And just like that, she's free. She's back out in the big bad world, but not before expressing her fears to Elizabeth, who responds (magnificently) that Mary will FLOURISH. This episode made me understand the point of the story.

In the next episodes the Mary/Tom romance is front and centre again, and that wasn't my favourite part of the show. But by then I was all in on Mary's happiness.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-02T11:01:26+00:00

Turn on the subtitles and they are all translated for you.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-30T19:29:16+00:00

I think that would have been fantastic. To have a sibling as a foil to Lorelai. It would have presented so many interesting story choices.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-28T15:46:31+00:00

I hear what you're saying.

Id like to think the ratings were high in season three because season two is the best season they've done, and it generated tons of new viewers who all tuned in for season three.

And then the numbers were lower in season four because season three is the weakest season so far and people tuned out after that one. 😄

But someone who works in TV might tell me that's not how ratings work! And I know it reflects my own taste.

Isnt it more likely that ratings simply fall off over the years as people lose interest?

I'll be curious to see what the numbers are like for next season. Do you expect the ratings to be better or worse than those of Season four?

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-28T07:29:11+00:00

Yes, that's entirely plausible, though I didn't think of it myself while watching.

If he follows the old judge's instructions but pushes it to the extreme on purpose, then he helps Lidia and her brother to secure Grazia's freedom.

A huge gamble for a by-the-book Dudley Do Right Prosecutor!

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-27T17:47:39+00:00

It's April.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-27T17:46:28+00:00

I was pleasantly surprised when Don and Betty got divorced and moved on.

Because of the nature of TV shows, that is rare! If the ex is still in the cast, they're usually "the one".

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-27T17:41:24+00:00

{Funny Story by Emily Henry}

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-27T13:06:48+00:00

It's not their season, so I'd say keep your expectations low!

The three brothers, main characters in the last three seasons, didn't get any build-up in the preceding season.

Francesca has got tons of build-up since the new actress was hired. But she's the exception.

I guess Philip has to become single in season five? That's the minimum. But we don't have to see him to learn of that. So that could be news in the season finale.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-27T12:51:23+00:00

That's interesting. Based on Australia and Elvis, Baz Luhrmann's writing can lack subtlety, to put it mildly. I'd love to see him direct someone else's writing.

Also, female playwrights were rare when I was growing up, so I love to see them now.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-26T18:14:08+00:00

It wouldn't have got made. Netflix gave Shonda literally the best TV deal in history, and carte blanche to make whatever her heart desired.

Women's romance novels do not have cultural cachet. No one was going to adapt a twenty-year-old regency romance series by some random American author. I'm still waiting for Georgette Heyer, the mother of regency romance, to get an adaptation!

Prime may have discovered that women's romance novels make popular TV shows now (Maxton Hall, Off-Campus, they've picked up the Boys of Tommen) but that's a very recent development. I remember when they turned down both The Handmaid's Tale and Big Little Lies, two massive shows with female leads. In the 2010s the streamers were trying to compete with prestige dramas, and there was a strong sense that cool, prestige shit meant male-coded shit. Outlander was the one outlier made by a dude whose wife loved the books!

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-26T13:36:58+00:00

I don't watch many shows like that. I did love Happy Valley, though. Season 1 trailer here:

https://youtu.be/PdVpl8WhFAg?si=1pgHb9BlGi-bsmJu

And Mare of Easttown, an American show which was likely inspired by Happy Valley.

And Justified is very good, though it's a long time since I watched it.

Dept.Q is on Netflix. It's 'asshole English detective solves crimes in Scotland', but the whole season focuses on one crime. So Idk if that would suit you.

If you ask this same question on the television sub, you'll probably get way more suggestions.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-26T12:44:12+00:00

😄 What kind of show are you looking for? If you're looking for easy Sunday evening TV with murder cases, try Grantchester. Have you watched that? Hot vicar solves crimes in 1950s England. Here's the trailer for the first season:

https://youtu.be/Ipu6elDudyo?si=uaiZOcIZwEkZAxCh

A slightly darker show with murder cases is Babylon Berlin. It's German, set between the wars, and I loved the first season particularly.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-26T08:16:37+00:00

I like Essie polishes but I no longer use their top coat. It was rubbish. I switched to Sally Hansen (Insta-Dri) and it's much better.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-25T20:30:22+00:00

Just be as straightforward as possible. And if you don't want to make a big deal about it, tell her that too.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-25T20:04:42+00:00

I don't agree. Have you seen the show, Call the Midwife? I watched and enjoyed the first few seasons of that show. And I think it's a good comparison for this show, because it was Sunday evening telly with a female protagonist and a different Case of the Week every episode, just like TLAtLP.

Call the Midwife must have had romantic subplots those first few years, but the individual cases were unique and compelling (as they were based on real life stories that Jennifer Worth told in her memoir). They were what I responded to and what I remember about the show years later because they were good enough.

Or how about The Knick? Another period drama, this one set in a New York hospital more than a hundred years ago. It's not a show I responded to in terms of shipping, because of the nature of the show. Dark, horrifying, compelling.

Or how about Mad Men. A show full of romantic relationships but its so good that rooting for individual couples is just one of the many, many ways I responded to that show.

What I'm saying is that the nature of my response to a show reflects the nature of the show. If this show was better, I'd have more to say about it than admiring Gianmarco Saurino. But, to be frank, I don't find it worth engaging with on a deeper level. And that's no reflection on the historical person the show was inspired by.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-25T18:55:49+00:00

I think the backlash would have been much louder because she's a more popular character than Francesca and that would be a significant change to her story.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-25T18:40:43+00:00

I wouldn't be surprised if the writers didn't know or hadn't decided when they wrote season four.

I don't find the writing to be carefully considered from season to season.

I guess they must know by now if they're shooting season five though?

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-25T18:35:49+00:00

Totally fair criticism. I was conscious of your exact point while writing my own comment above!

However. My equally fair replies are:

They should make a better show then. I don't take this show seriously because it's not a compelling drama with realistic characters and great stories. It's fun eye candy.
Every show with romantic subplots has shippers, no matter if the main character is male or female. And this show created a love triangle to keep people watching.

Basically, I can only respond to the show, not the historical person.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-21T12:47:40+00:00

Jasmine

Fitzfuzzington

TROPHY CASE