Lost in Austen

I was so thrilled when I learned of Lost in Austen, the BBC miniseries. I mean who more than I, a devoted Jane Austen fan, would enjoy a fantasy trip to the world of Pride and Prejudice. Oh the possibilities, you could befriend the beloved Elizabeth, or tell off some vile character like Mrs. Bennet, Lady Catherine, or Mr. Collins. And indeed the 4 part miniseries indulges many of these fantasies; it thrusts 21st century Amanda Price into the Regency world where she navigates her way around ridiculous situations and the tried and true problems of time travel.
However, somewhere along the way this fantasy trip falls flat. Maybe it is because it tries to do too much. And more importantly it lacks what is best about Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth (she’s been catapulted to the future in place of Price’s character). The story goes too far and then doesn't offer explanations for many goofy plot turns. Why, for example, is Darcy taken to the future and then back in regency England and then forgets all about it? Also, Amanda Price doesn’t seem to have a central goal in the miniseries. She tries to manipulate the events in the story based on her knowledge of the novel and puts herself into a number of circumstances for comical reasons, but she never achieves her stated goal: to try to preserve the novel’s outcomes.
And the Darcy isn’t very good. That’s always the problem with any remake of Pride and Prejudice. Who can compete with Colin Firth’s version? (although I thought Matthew MacFadyen who was just seen BBC’s Little Dorrit, was a good Darcy) . One good point of the movie was the Mr. Wickam played by Tom Riley -- I liked the twist taken with his character and the clever way it was shown that our prejudices may have been wrong about him – plus the actor was much more interesting to look at than Darcy.
Overall, I thought, bummer, I wish it could have been better. But maybe there’s hope, and BBC will put Amanda Price into Persuasion where she will interact with Anne Elliot and tell off Anne’s awful sister Elizabeth.