Initially, I found myself wishing I hadn't seen Emma Thompson's version before seeing this one. But about the time I started the 4th half-hour installment I realized that it didn't matter. Even without the 1995 film version to compare it to, this version just falls flat. I've been able to watch and enjoy the smaller, TV-mini-series versions of Austen's novels as much (or even more) than their big, film-versions, but this just didn't work. They were slightly more faithful to the novel, but only slightly, and it didn't work in their favor. The acting is just bad. The actors all seemed as if they were reciting from a teleprompter. I liked very much the production of "Mansfield Park" that came out just a couple of years after this, so I know they were capable of doing so much better. At the very least, the actress playing Marianne should have at least pretended to have as much passion as Marianne was supposed to have, but she didn't even try. I couldn't tell one difference between Marianne's character and Elinor's character. But maybe it was the script. The script didn't seem to give her all that much passion to act out. There are other versions out there that I haven't seen, and I hope they do better.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the BBC dramatised all Austen's six completed novels. They reached a high note with Fay Weldon's definitive Pride and Prejudice, which is still the benchmark for screen adaptations of Austen (and far superior to the syrupy 1995 version). This Sense and Sensibility followed two years later and is inevitably something of a let down. In recent years it has also suffered by comparison with Emma Thompson's masterly movie adaptation.This version has the advantage of an extra hour in which to tell the story. It can include characters that Thompson had to omit, such as Lucy's silly elder sister and Lady Middleton and her spoilt children and can include scenes that she had to cut (in particular the confrontations between Elinore and Lady Ferrars and Elinore and Willoughby). It also helps that key characters are closer to their right ages. In the movie, Robert Hardy is not only 30 years too old to be Sir John Middleton, but is actually two years older than the actress playing his mother-in-law. Similarly, Thompson's Elinore and Rickman's Colonel Brandon are a dozen years older than Austen's characters. Overall, it feels like a more faithful adaptation of the book.However, this is not necessarily important. Because Emma Thompson knew she was going to have to condense the story she had to think much more carefully about what she wanted to get from the book. Her free adaptation actually improves on Austen in certain respects. She dramatises the process of Elinore and Edward falling in love (Austen simply tells us this has happened in the prologue). This soon pays dividends, because in the book, apart from one visit to Barton Cottage and a couple of short stilted meetings in London, Edward disappears until the closing chapter. In the book, Marianne and Willoughby fare better, but her eventual husband, Colonel Brandon, also disappears for long stretches and there is relatively little interplay between the two rivals. Emma Thompson realised that the key relationship is actually that between the sisters and that is what she puts at the heart of the story. Their lovers are almost incidental.The failure of this TV version is that although it can be more expansive and include more characters and more incidents, it doesn't have the same sense of purpose. In particular, it never really establishes the relationship between the sisters. Irene Richards (who was a superb Charlotte Lucas in P & P) plays Elinore as somewhat more spiky and confrontational than did Emma Thompson. She is much more openly critical of Marianne and less indulgent with her and for much of the time they seem to actively dislike each other (she is also too nakedly hostile to Lucy Steel). Tracy Childs is a good Marianne, but perhaps too much of a spoilt brat at times. The relationship between the two never quite works and with that failure the production is doomed.Nonetheless, there are incidental benefits. Many of the performances are good. I have a lot of time for Bosco Hogan's Edward and Peter Woodward's Willoughby. I also liked this Mrs Palmer (although the underwritten Mr Palmer suffers in comparison with Hugh Laurie's character). What is ultimately disappointing is the vagueness of the writing and direction. Too often this production simply misses the point of a scene. For example, it is not sufficiently clear that Mrs Ferrars gives precedence to Lucy as a snub to Elinore. Or again, that Fanny invited the Steels to stay with her in order to prevent her husband from inviting Elinore and Marianne. This is a question of fudging simple plot points, but far more inexplicable is the fact that when Willoughby turns up in the middle of the night to see Marianne he is apparently unaware that she is ill - that was the reason he came!Although I think this is probably the most disappointing of the six BBC Austens (Northanger Abbey is less satisfactory but more inventive), it is still a decent enough production and I am glad to have it in my collection. I would recommend it to anyone that wants a more complete version of the book than Thompson and Ang Lee were able to give us. It is not as good as their movie, but is worth a viewing for all that.

I really like Jane Austen and normally i like TV-series of her work more then a movie ( i think the 1971 TV-series of Emma is great). But this series just does not sparkle. The acting is too restrained. Therefore the whole production becomes rather dull. There is hardly any humor in it. Also there is no chemistry between Elinor and Edward.Irene Richards ( Elinor ) has not done much TV / film work after this series and that should come as no surprise. Most of the actors in this TV-series are no match to the actors in the 1995 movie. I would like to see a new TV series of this novel. As for now... i'll watch the Emma Thompson movie.

This 3-hr miniseries seems to me much more faithful to the novel than the 1995 film by Ang Lee and Emma Thompson. the characters were as I pictured them while reading the novel. I find Edward a credible character and the love affair between him and Elinor skilfully and sensitively portrayed. (They make a much more convincing couple than stuttering Hugh Grant and Miss Thompson...) Best of all, the relationship between the two sisters : their tenderness and love in spite of their very different temperaments is convincingly depicted. I just felt the 1995 adaptation missed that aspect which made Elinor hysterics at ill Marianne's bedside all the more absurd and ill-timed. In this miniseries, there are no such hysterical scenes during Marianne's illness, Mrs Jennings is there just as in the book. The dialogues are almost word for word from the novel. The slow pace is suitable because so is the novel. Just one flaw : the end which seems a bit abrupt, as if they were running out of time. A really lovely series.