How 'The Other Bennet Sister' Became the Summer’s Most Satisfying Romance
It’s been a big year for romance on TV, which isn't terribly surprising. Given the state of, well…pretty much everything, it’s not exactly a shock that people are eager for stories about love, affection, and the guaranteed prospect of a happily ever after. When things in the real world seem especially bleak, romance offers escapism in its purest form — stories grounded in character dynamics and emotional connections, and often bolstered by no small amount of steamy sex.
This year in television has been largely defined by love stories — and by a surprising amount of explicit physical intimacy. Queer hockey romance Heated Rivalry essentially turned the industry on its head, captivating viewers everywhere and reminding us all that good sex is often a foundational element of good storytelling. And it wasn’t alone. Shows like Bridgerton, Off Campus, Rivals, and Every Year After have been hits with critics and viewers alike, balancing compelling character and emotional arcs with chemistry-filled physical connections and steamy bedroom scenes.
Don’t get me wrong, this trend is fantastic, from its satisfying determination to finally give female perspectives (and pleasures) their due to its unapologetic embrace of vulnerability and emotion. You truly love to see it. It’s just a bit ironic that, now, when more explicit romance is finally having such a moment across so many different kinds of stories and series (and even mediums, if you’re a person who follows publishing trends), that the most satisfying love story of the summer is the one that takes us right back to the genre’s (much tamer) roots: Jane Austen.
Technically speaking, BritBox’s The Other Bennet Sister isn’t an Austen adaptation. But it is something of a throwback: To the classic period dramas of yesteryear, and to the sort of romances where glimpses of bared forearms (or wet dress shirts) were the height of titillation. Yet, part of the appeal of The Other Bennet Sister is that, despite its traditional trappings, it's also a thoroughly modern story, one that grounds its heroine’s search for a partner in a deeper acknowledgement and understanding of her true self.
Based on Janice Hadlow’s Pride & Prejudice-inspired 2020 novel, The Other Bennet Sister expands the world of Austen’s beloved classic, focusing its story on the often forgotten and largely ignored middle Bennet daughter, Mary (Ella Bruccoleri). A bookish wallflower whose socially awkward tendencies put her at a distinct disadvantage next to her frequently more memorable sisters — beautiful Jane (Maddie Close), witty Elizabeth (Poppy Gilbert), good-humored Kitty (Molly Wright), and spirited Lydia (Grace Hogg-Robinson) — Mary struggles to fit in amongst the rest of her family. (She wears glasses, after all! The horror!) It’s no wonder that the character often feels like an afterthought in the larger events of Pride & Prejudice.
The series speedruns through the major events of Austen’s classic, briskly offering new perspectives on everything from Mr. Collins’s arrival to Mary’s infamously disastrous attempt at the pianoforte. More importantly, perhaps, it also offers a poignant explanation for the middle Bennet daughter’s awkward nature, which seemingly stems from a lifetime of being constantly berated and belittled by the mother whose approval she desperately seeks. (If The Other Bennet Sister has a flaw, it’s probably its overly harsh interpretation of Mrs. Bennet, whose understandable fear for her daughters’ physical and financial futures turns her cruel rather than concerned.)
Help Support The Shipping Lane! Upgrade to a paid subscription today to help the site expand and get access to our paid features as they go live.
Still, both Mary and the series in which she stars come into their own almost as soon as she gets the chance to step free from the margins of her sister’s epic love story, trading the world of Longbourn for London and the chance to shape her own fate. Working as a governess for her kind aunt (Indira Varma) and uncle (Richard Coyle), Mary is finally allowed to ask what it is that she wants from her life, and genuinely embrace the answer, whether it’s hiking mountains, crushing party word games, or simply picking out her own dress fabrics.
Of course, this is still an Austen-adjacent story, which means love and romance play a big part. Just, maybe not quite in the way you might expect by the time its final credits roll. To be clear, The Other Bennet Sister is achingly romantic, full of the sort of charming sweetness that will frequently leave you kicking your feet with glee. Nerdy barrister Tom Hayward (an exceptionally dreamy Donal Finn) and wealthy, Bohemian-esque William Ryder (an almost equally dreamy Laurie Davidson) are both excellent husband material, each drawn to Mary for the very traits her family has long criticised, and neither is put off by her less than traditional intersts or behavior.
Hayward is sweet and socially awkward in much the same way Mary is — we see him literally counting the steps out loud to a dance during a ball, and he flirts by way of (badly) practicing birdcalls. In many ways, they’re dorks who deserve each other — save for the fact that Tom technically has an “understanding” with Anne Baxter (Verada Sethu) that it’s not at all clear he wants to commit to. (Particularly once he meets Mary.)
Ryder sees a kindred spirit in the young woman who flouts convention and doesn’t seem to want to live the life she’s been told she should. Both men not only listen to but also value Mary’s opinions, and neither wants her to be anything other than who and what she is. It’s evident, by the series’s conclusion, why one relationship works out, and the other doesn’t, but neither ends badly, and everyone involved is better for having known and cared about one another.
But although The Other Bennet Sister features a love triangle where both sides are compelling options for Mary’s heart, the question of who she ultimately chooses isn’t really the point of the story the show is telling. Mary’s development as a character may include her relationships with Hayward and Ryder, but it isn’t defined by them, and the show’s larger story is as much about learning to love yourself as it is falling in love with someone else. The series is refreshingly determined to allow Mary to become a full person — to be happy as a person on her own — before asking someone else to be her happily ever after.
It’s possible that many viewers haven’t even heard of The Other Bennet Sister yet. As streamers go, BritBox is still a little niche-y, despite its slate of excellent crime dramas (Ludwig! Death Valley! Code of Silence!) and its extended library of beloved classics. (Truly, it deserves to be so much more mainstream than it is.) But here’s hoping that they’ve finally found the breakout hit they’ve been hoping for in this charmingly likeable romance that manages to honor the genre’s timeless appeal even as it pushes the period romance forward in new and satisfying ways.
All ten episodes of The Other Bennet Sister are now streaming on BritBox, and the series will return for a three-part Christmas special later this year.
Comments ()