OK, I admit it, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is pretty great

A few years back, I was gloating because I believed that Illumination, the studio that came up with the annoying Minions, had got their hands on Disney's angriest competitor DreamWorks. It seems the reality is more complicated: the two animation studios now have the same parent company, but they remain separate. So, spoke too soon, and too uninformedly. What's more, any input DreamWorks may have got from Illumination doesn't seem to have harmed them in the least, quite the contrary.

I really didn't expect to like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish for a number of reasons. One, it's the sequel to a spinoff which was quite decent but didn't beg to be followed up. Two, it is, albeit tangentially, part of the Shrek franchise, which is the main reason I have a lingering scepticism towards DreamWorks in the first place, in spite of really enjoying many of their films. The Shrek films' ambition to "deconstruct fairy tales" is so clearly aimed at the Disney versions of said tales that it becomes embarrassing, and there's a mean streak running through them that I know many people appreciate but I kinda hate. 

Three, the theme of The Last Wish, as praised by a number of critics online, didn't seem to be ideally suited for a family film. It appeared to centre to an alarming degree on confronting and accepting your mortality. That may be an interesting topic for grown-up critics, but what about the kids, a not unimportant target audience? If anyone should be allowed to not to have the inevitability of death rubbed in their faces, surely it should be children.

But, I have to admit defeat. I was won over. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is vivaciously animated, cleverly plotted, and has engaging characters. Yes, the "value your life" message is in there, but it's not what everything's about. Puss isn't the only one who may come to realise that he already has what he needs, "no magic required". The last wish of a fallen star, which he and many others seek, becomes a useful MacGuffin in order to highlight this theme. The way the map to the star changes, and the terrain and its challenges with it, depending on who uses it, was a great detail, inventive and unironically fairy-taleish.

The villains are also particularly strong. There's the dead-serious one (literally), a scary wolf in a hood, armed with two sickles, whom Puss meets in a tavern while drowning his sorrows in cream when he's found out he's on the last of his nine lives. Puss thinks he's a bounty hunter at first. He's not.

Then there's the potentially redeemable antagonist Goldilocks and her bears, a band of small-time crooks (as signalled by their far-from-posh English accents). I really liked the take on the Goldilocks story here: in this version, the bears adopt the orphan girl, fondly imagining that she's part of their family now. Goldi is not so sure.

Lastly, there's a more traditional Shrek-type villain, Big Jack Horner, who is Little Jack Horner grown up to a far from good boy. He's traditional in that he is a comic villain, but also (as the best ones of the Shrek villain bunch) a lethal and ruthless one. The big difference to the Shrek films is that the protagonists respect him and take him seriously. "Oh no, not Jack Horner" Puss exclaims in dismay when he learns who has the map. "That's why you don't mess with Jack Horner", Puss's sometime partner and love interest Kitty comments later, grimly. This approach makes the comic elements of Horner funnier than if he'd been the endless butt of Shrek jokes. At the same time, the cats are right to fear him.

Jack Horner also serves a useful purpose as a dark-humour-magnet. There are Shrek-type jokes of the too-harsh-for-a-Disney-flick kind in this film, but as they're mostly connected to Horner and his actions they're far easier to take than if Puss & Co. had behaved with casual cruelty (as Shrek and Fiona sometimes did). Whether they're heroes or anti-heroes, I prefer protagonists I'm supposed to root for to steer clear of meanness and pettiness. Villains, now, that's a completely different matter.

The one good thing about Disney's Peter Pan & Wendy (to be fair, it's Hook)

You've got to hand it to Peter Pan & Wendy, the live-action Disney remake very few people talk about. It answers the interesting question whether a Peter Pan adaptation with a good Hook can still be bad. The answer, unfortunately, is yes.

There are just too many things that don't work. Neverland doesn't look particularly magical. Peter himself is somewhat muted, and doesn't come across as a charismatic leader. Wendy's never swept away by him; you can certainly allow yourself to have a bit of conflict between Peter and Wendy, but she has to be into him before she starts to question him. I try to disregard the display of modern pieties in light entertainment to some extent, because otherwise I'd have practically no light entertainment to enjoy. But Peter Pan & Wendy parades its 2020s moralism so blatantly that it hurts the story and is impossible to ignore.

For instance, we really don't need a girl quota of "lost boys". J.M. Barrie actually offered an explanation as to why there weren't any lost girls: the lost boys were babies who fell out of their prams, and little girls weren't foolish enough to do that. Which, yes, is a bit patronising, but not more so than a scene where Wendy points out "But you're not all boys", only to be answered with an aggressive "So?" Call them lost children if necessary, but for my money being a lost boy, trailing after Peter Pan and following his orders, isn't that much of a privilege – we needn't covet it. There are still plenty of female characters in Neverland: Wendy, Tinkerbell, Tiger Lily, the mermaids (plus, I must reluctantly point out, the crocodile was actually female in the original story). I don't mind a couple of women pirates, though, and a multicultural bunch of lost boys is fine; it's easy to imagine that Peter's recruitment field was wider than the British Isles (and I'm not sure I buy the pram story, seeing how he lured away the Darling siblings).

Speaking of Tinkerbell and Tiger Lily, they are also victims of the filmmakers' good intentions (or moral vanity, take your pick). Tinkerbell can be black, no problem – it was Disney themselves who popularised the blond pigtail look, they're free to change it – but she still has to be recognisably Tinkerbellish: temperamental, jealous of Wendy and sometimes a downright menace. But the film doesn't have the bottle to make an ethnicity-changed Tink a flawed character, so she ends up bland, friendly with Wendy and not noticeably in love with Peter. As for Tiger Lily, I could buy her having big-sisterly feelings for Peter, but otherwise, she's not allowed to have a personality either: she's just wise and, of course, good at fighting.

But, yeah, Jude Law's Hook was good.            

Not that the pirate side of things was flawlessly handled either. The pirates of Neverland aren't meant to resemble any real pirates that ever lived: they're supposed to be the kind of pirates children imagine when they're playing. Having a gritty-looking, greasy-haired Hook instead of the usual glamorous swashbuckler is misunderstanding the source material. For all that, Law plays Hook with an inner melancholy disguised by bravado I think Barrie would have approved of. And I like the sea shanties.

I have some sympathy for the film's attempts to focus on the part of the story I happen to find most fascinating as well: the relationship between Peter Pan and Hook. Here as in so many other versions of the tale, they started out as friends before the friendship went sour. They are also more dependent on each other than they like to admit. When the film revolves around this relationship, I actually found it interesting with even a couple of touching moments.

The problem is that the film is called Peter Pan & Wendy, not Peter Pan & Hook or simply Hook (Spielberg beat Disney to that one). It's supposed to be an adaptation of the classic story, not a left-field take on it. The main plot, though, is told in a perfunctory manner. I can relate to finding Hook's character more intriguing than Peter Pan's, but if that's the way you feel, then maybe you shouldn't do a film based on Barrie's book and play, but rather a prequel or retelling. In the original Peter Pan and Wendy, whatever one may think of Peter Pan, he's very much the hero of his own life.

Is the High Evolutionary a good villain?

My opinions on Marvel's Phase Five so far have been crushingly unoriginal. I did think I'd like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania more than the average viewer because the criticism I heard of it – about tonal shifts, too much "Marvel humour" and not "doing justice" to a villain (Modok) who seemed a pretty goofy concept to begin with – weren't things I believed I'd mind that much. It turns out I was possibly even more disappointed with Quantumania than the average viewer. 

I hated what they did with Cassie, who went from Scott's supportive daughter to annoying Millennial, full of platitudes like "Only because it's not happening to you doesn't mean it's not happening". She also has the gall to be disappointed in her world-saving father because he doesn't provoke policemen during demonstrations for the homeless (because that'll help). The jokes didn't land with me: in fact, I think I actually enjoyed Thor: Love and Thunder more. Kang the Conqueror was a solid head villain, though.

Then Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 came out, and everyone loved it. I saw it once it streamed on Disney + (I can't face waiting an eternity for Marvel's post-credit scenes in the cinema, and consequently I wait for streaming and am always behind when it comes to the movies). And guess what: I loved it too, or at least really liked it. So what kind of "take" can I come up with that isn't too drearily familiar?

Perhaps the perspective of a villain-lover? There has been some talk about the High Evolutionary in Guardians 3 being such an good villain, in fact better than Kang, the MCU's present Big Bad. It's got me thinking about the different things people seem to want from their villains.

Now, don't get me wrong, the High Evolutionary is a highly effective villain. He does exactly what is required of him by the plot, i.e. he makes the viewers hate him. Chukwudi Iwuji puts in a great performance; I heard one reviewer complaining that he shouted too much, but for my part I thought he balanced the quiet and the more histrionic moments perfectly. The High Evolutionary only loses it when he thinks he's achieved his dream of creating a being with original thought, but is terrified that the discovery will slip through his fingers. Guardians 3 manages to integrate intriguing philosophical questions – this time about what makes the "perfect" being, and whether it is worthwhile striving to create one (answer: no) – into high entertainment much better than Thor: Love and Thunder did.

So what's the problem, then? There's none, really, except for villain-lovers like me. I adhere to the maxim of Stephanie Garber's Donatella, that the best villains are the ones you secretly like (or, in my case, not so secretly drool over). The High Evolutionary is not that kind of villain. He's designed to be loathsome. If his experiments on animals and children (yes, the movie is manipulative, but trust me, it works) don't achieve the desired effect, his calculated meanness towards Rocket, whose "enhanced" brain is ostensibly the High Evolutionary's greatest work, and his callous scrapping of whole planets of creatures who don't live up to his vision will. And if that's what you want – a thoroughly boo-and-hissable bad guy – then they don't come much better than the jerk whose hubris even manages to alienate his own followers in the end.

This is probably exactly what many people want from a villain. In years past, I've been delighted to discover that the villain-loving community is much bigger than I imagined. But it only stands to reason that not everyone likes to gush over bad guys. Even I, for a change, can enjoy a story where I whole-heartedly root for the good guys and want their enemy foiled, like in Guardians 3. Some people, I guess, prefer this formula over one where you're tricked into feeling some sort of sympathy with the villain.

Is the High Evolutionary a better villain than Kang? I don't think it's possible to say yet, because the MCU isn't done with Kang. It would be the same as to judge Thanos as a villain before Avengers: Infinity War. But although Jonathan Majors did an impressive job as Kang the Conqueror in Quantumania (and yes, it will prove a challenge if Marvel has to replace him, but that's another story), Kang as a character in that particular movie does perhaps lose out in effectiveness compared to the High Evolutionary. Kang is, after all, taken out by ants, albeit giant, highly intelligent ones. Still, I'm happy that Kang is the Big Bad we're going to see more of: he's potentially more complex than the High Evolutionary which, let's face it, isn't hard.

Historical novels not set in Tudor or Victorian times

Although I've read quite a respectable number of books lately (if not nearly as many as I've bought), blogging about them is another matter. I confess that unless there is some book-related theme I'm burning to comment on, writing about geeky stuff is considerably easier. However, I realise that a book-themed blog post is well overdue.

Perhaps my lack of enthusiasm for book-blogging says something about the novels I've been reading. They've been good, sure, but they haven't made an overwhelming impression on me. I haven't discovered a new favourite author, but I've had a good time. Take The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola, a historical novel set in Paris in the 1750s. Once in a while, I like to read historical novels set in times and places I am less familiar with. For one thing, it's exciting not to know beforehand how things pan out, and you learn something new, even if you have to take anything you pick up from a historical novel with a pinch of salt. The 1750s is a period of French history I don't know much about, so I was interested in the setting from the start.

The plot concerns Madeleine, the scarred daughter of a brothel keeper, who is tasked with spying on a clockmaker called Reinhart and his household. He is considered for a position at court, but there are rumours about unnatural experiments, and the question is if he's quite safe to be let near the royal presence. Madeleine is reluctant to become a police spy, but the reward she is promised could help her and her beloved nephew escape life at the brothel. She becomes the maid of Reinhart's daughter Veronique, and the novel is told alternately from the points of view of Madeleine and Veronique, sometimes with a section told from the point of view of Jeanne (Madame de Pompadour, no less) thrown in.

It's an intriguing story, where the setup reminded me a little of Fingersmith without the lesbian romance – Veronique isn't quite as innocent as she seems. Although the novel focuses a great deal on female solidarity, the mystery that kept me hooked concerned Reinhart. I was happy to be kept guessing about him. Does he have sinister intentions or is he just a committed scientist? Does he care about his daughter or not? It's a well-spun yarn, and clearly well-researched. There's a lot of local colour – a little too much for my taste – and the descriptions are filtered through the characters' consciousness, which always adds interest.

The characters seemed less authentic than the settings to me, though. I frequently felt the presence of 21th-century tut-tutting. Wasn't it awful that there was such a divide between rich and poor? And that women's lives were so limited? And then there was slavery too! (Reinhart's footman Joseph is a former slave, the "former" very much depending on the goodwill of his master.) The female protagonists felt less like 18th-century women than modern women stuck in 18th-century lives and hating it. Even Madame de Pompadour, who's at the top of the tree, is full of gloom.

It's hard to justify why the protagonists' lamentations irritated me so much. Of course the poor resented the rich in the 18th century, and gifted women must often have wondered why they were prohibited from earning their own bread. Many people found slavery appalling, because it was appalling. Only, I think 18th-century people approached these questions from a different angle, and if they expressed similar sentiments to modern ones they did so in a different way. I would have enjoyed the novel more if it had either dialled down the commentary or made more of an effort to make it feel genuinely 18th-century.

Kate Atkinson wisely stays away from social commentary in Shrines of Gaiety, a novel set in London in 1926 which focuses on hard-bitten nightclub owner Nellie Coker and her large family. I wasn't a great fan of Atkinson's One Good Turn, which is the only other novel I've read by her, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the glamorous if potentially dangerous nightclub settings and the expert juggling of several plot threads and characters. There's no downright moralising, mercifully, more wry commenting which reminded me of Fay Weldon's "Love and Inheritance" trilogy.

The ending, though it could have been more tragic, still feels a little downbeat, and it is somehow typical that the author leaves an open ending for one potential romance (which leads me to assume that everything went swimmingly, as I suspect that Atkinson wouldn't have held back from telling us if it all went to pot). But all in all, I liked Shrines of Gaiety. If the Coker family saga had been further expanded upon, it would have made for a good costume drama series of, say, ten episodes. I mean that as praise, though I'm not sure it's the kind of praise Kate Atkinson would appreciate.

Not even the shapeshifting is fun in this Zygon – sorry, Skrull – invasion

At the beginning of the latest Marvel Disney + series Secret Invasion, I thought I'd have a hot take on it – while others called it "promising", I thought it was dull. At the end of the series, however, I'm far from the only one to be critical. 

The set-up of the series first. Nick Fury, the grizzled head of superhero-related intelligence, is called back to Earth from a mission in space. Back in the Nineties, he and Carol Danvers (aka Captain Marvel) promised to find a new planet for a fugitive alien species called Skrulls, whose most prominent feature is their ability to shapeshift. Thirty-odd years later, nothing has happened on the planet-finding front, and the Skrulls are getting restless. Some of them are beginning to wonder whether Earth wouldn't make a decent new home – once you get rid of all the pesky humans.

You could see how things could get interesting from such a premise. Now after the show has aired, however, there are far-from-glowing reviews all over containing observations with which I concur, such as:

- There's no in-universe reason for not calling in the Avengers. Nick Fury's insistence on handling the situation himself (with the help from a few friendly Skrulls), just because he wants to clean up what he considers to be his mess, looks dangerously pig-headed. The Earth's future is on the line here.

- The motivation of the villain, Skrull leader Gravik, makes no sense. I'd argue it's quite a leap from feeling angry with Fury to wanting to destroy the whole human race. Gravik isn't four years old. Why is he basically going "you promised, and now I'm gonna kill you all"? Plus his railing over the kills he did as Fury's secret agent rings hollow considering all the non-ordered murders he's done since, including some spectacularly stupid ones of his own kind.

- No-one's plan makes any sense. Not Gravik's, not Fury's, not Fury's best Skrull bud Talos's. Everyone's acting aimlessly and idiotically. This is a serious flaw in a thriller, which needs to be slick and smart.

- Why is it so hard to find a planet for the Skrulls? The MCU seems to be full of perfectly habitable planets. And what has Captain Marvel, who considered herself too fancy to help out in human affairs for decades, been doing with her time?

- Why is it so hard to integrate the Skrulls? Fury is appalled to learn that there were as many as a million of them originally. But even allowing for some population growth, that's not an awful lot compared to billions of humans. You could easily tuck all of Skrull-dom away in one admittedly large city somewhere, or spread them out. Even without a shape-shifting disguise they're not that scary-looking, and MCU humans have seen a lot of strange things by now.

- The series makes Fury look bad. He's supposed to be the classic Broken Hero who finds his mojo again – during the first episode, people are continually telling him he's past it – but he never quite does. He's also made to look caddish because he prefers his Skrull wife, Varra, to wear a (very attractive) human disguise, rather than be her green, ridgy, elf-eared and pointy-toothed self. My own main problem with this is that Varra's shapeshifting was her own idea; she purposefully sought out a woman she knew Fury would like the look of, who was conveniently dying, and asked her permission to take over her life. It's a bit much after that to ask to be loved "for yourself" years later.

- The last episode leaves one character ridiculously overpowered, and seeing as this character has previously been complicit is a mass-murder before seeing the error of their ways (kinda), it doesn't feel earned.

- And, yes, the series is actually pretty boring.

What can I add to all these (in my opinion) well-founded criticisms? A more personal disappointment for me was that the series failed to do something interesting with the whole shapeshifting concept. As someone who has been stagestruck since childhood, I've always been fascinated by the "acting" part of shapeshifting. To what extent do Skrulls who take over a human's appearance and tap into their memories also take over that human's personality? 

In one episode, we saw a Skrull give in to Fury when Fury threatened the son of the human the Skrull was impersonating. How come? It wasn't the Skrull's boy. That would have been worth diving into, but the series never does. Plus, I've always loved scenes where shapeshifters give themselves away by acting "out of character" and doing or saying something the person they're posing as would never do. But Secret Invasion doesn't deal with psychological "tells" at all; Skrulls are revealed in a much more hands-on manner.

Instead of shapeshifting-as-acting-drama, we get yet another clunky immigration metaphor. This was all the more irritating for me because it hit the same beats as the Doctor Who two-parter "The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion", which also featured shape-shifting aliens who had lost their planet. There, as here, there were plenty of peaceful aliens who only wanted to live a normal life. There, as here, a growing dissatisfaction with having to disguise themselves led to some aliens being "radicalised". There, as here, the human originals whom the aliens were impersonating were kept in pods and their memories mined in order to make the impersonations more believable. 

The Zygon two-parter is not a favourite of mine, but I must admit it explored the logistics of trying to integrate a shape-shifting species more thoroughly than Secret Invasion, and it did do more with the "human or alien" premise. But both "The Zygon Invasion/Inversion" and Secret Invasion lack something a shapeshifter story should have if I'm to enjoy it: a bit of fun.       

Pixar's Elemental: strong on romance, weak on allegory

I have similar feelings towards Elemental, Pixar's latest film, as many others (judging mainly from YouTube). On the strength of trailers and movie clips, I wasn't too eager to go to the cinema to watch it, and was tempted to wait until the Disney + release. When I did watch it at the cinema, however, I was pleasantly surprised and had a really good time.

Why wasn't I more excited for the film, then, as I could see from the trailers etc. that the animation would be stunning and colourful? The general impression of the Elemental's premise seems to be "haven't we seen this before?". A world with humanised elements doesn't come across as very innovative from a studio that has already given us humanised toys, bugs, monsters, fish, emotions and more. What bothered me more than a certain staleness in the Pixar formula, though, was the staleness of the themes addressed. Were we really getting "let's overcome prejudice" and generational conflict? Again?

I've seen the "let's overcome prejudice" theme in animated films and elsewhere many, many times. Zootopia (or Zootropolis in Europe, but as I don't know why the title was changed I'll stick to the original one) is the most high-profiled example among the animated flicks, and to be fair I thought it handled the subject matter rather cleverly. More recently, we've had Raya and the Last Dragon and Luca, and apparently Trolls World Tour from Dreamworks (which I haven't seen) tackled the same issues. It's especially popular to use allegories when trying to put the anti-prejudice message across, and while I can appreciate the good intentions behind them, I feel as if I see another clunky metaphor for immigration (looking at you, Marvel's Secret Invasion) I shall scream. I've already expanded on why I especially dislike allegories where humans are the discriminators and the discriminated against are another species of some kind. At least Elemental doesn't go down that road, but still: this has been done.

Generational conflict is the latest favourite topic of animated Disney films, and it sometimes crops up in Pixar too. I'm getting pretty tired of this as well, especially as generational-conflict films tend to be short on villains. Encanto, Strange World, Turning Red and now Elemental all have the younger generation questioning and/or wanting to break free from the older one, and zero villains.

But enough whining (for now). In spite of my misgivings, I very much enjoyed Elemental, which luckily isn't just Zootopia all over again. What I especially liked about the film was the romance. Here we have two protagonists – the prickly fire girl Ember and the somewhat mushy but endearing water guy Wade – unapologetically falling for each other in a classic romcom scenario. When's the last time we got that in an animated film? Seems like ages. And it's not just one of the characters doing all the running, either. Ember and Wade see the point of each other and complement each other: she appreciates his ability to connect to others, he admires her spark and can-do approach. It's really sweet.

The other main story thread, about Ember's parents' experiences as immigrants to "Element City" and how they affect Ember, has its moments too, though for my part I was more into the love story. Ember's sudden realisation that she doesn't really want to take over her father's shop felt as if it surfaced a bit abruptly after we've seen her repeatedly trying to prove to her dad that she's ready to take over. But maybe that's the point: she feels so guilty about not really enjoying shop work that she's suppressed her ambitions.

The main problem with Elemental is that the allegory of elements living together in one city doesn't serve either of these plot threads. Yes, it's visually impressive, and has inspired the animators to a lot of creative character and city designs. But it doesn't really work. However romantic the scene is where Ember and Wade finally dare to touch and manage to do so without destroying each other, you can't help wondering what will happen when they get even more tactile, plus if and how they'll manage to have children. 

As for the immigrant story, its personal approach is both a strength and a weakness. Unlike Zootopia, Elemental isn't about bringing harmony to a whole society; it's just about Ember trying to have a relationship and find a career that fits her talents without upsetting her parents. This makes the film more engaging and less finger-wagging than if it had gone further down the social commentary route. On the other hand, it can't use the same gambit as Zootopia, where there were no one-to-one parallels between different animals in the film and different groups of people in the real world, which lead to more general and less infected musings on the nature of prejudice. But in Elemental, the fire people are immigrants; they've already been established as such within the story. However, the physical danger that water poses to fire, and fire to everything else, has no equivalent in the real world. Elements really don't mix, but humans can. 

I don't think Element City is meant to be a one-to-one parallel to, say, New York (what would that imply about the air and earth people – that there are some immigrants who've had it easy?), but with some real-world parallels being so explicit, Elemental falls between two chairs when it comes to its world building.

Quibbles aside, Elemental is a heartwarming love story and sometimes touching family drama which is beautifully animated. It's definitely worth watching in a cinema. But Pixar does need to look out. In a film like Inside Out, they were really committed to the idea of animating a girl's emotional development by making her emotions into characters of their own. They had fun with the concept, whereas in Elemental, the animated elements are mostly a way to dress up a story that might as well have been told as a live-action romcom featuring humans. If the story and concept don't gel, then maybe one of them has to go.

Filling a Downton-shaped hole: Sanditon series three

Yep, I'm late with my blogging, which should really have taken place last week. My excuses are pre-vacation stress and a complete lack of inspiration. But now the vacation has started, and I have a given subject after having watched the whole series three of Sanditon.

Admittedly, there's not much scope for in-depth analysis (which suits me fine, to be honest), as this remained an enjoyable soufflé of a show throughout. The main difference to series one and two was that this time around, we got a satisfying ending. Series three was the final one, and its creators knew it, so they tied everything up in a pretty bow, something critics hate but viewers like myself love. Much as I've tried to see the point of "dynamic" endings that are more like "real life", few things beat a conclusion to a story which clearly signals that everything will be all right.

And that's not the only thing this show succeeded with. I have an impression, too, that it was popular. In (admittedly anglophile) Sweden it was aired on our main channel in a prime-time Saturday slot, and a common line in conversations with other costume-drama lovers became "you've seen Sanditon, of course". Yanks seemed to have loved it as well. Also, the fact that the show was saved from cancellation and then got two more series demonstrates that it must have done something right.

So, what is its appeal? After all, there is plenty to criticise. It's unashamedly shallow, making Downton Abbey look like Dostoyevsky in comparison, and the characters' mind-set feels more modern than Regency. Charlotte's proto-feminism and "follow your heart" rhetoric, and the respectful way it's received by her swains as priceless pearls of wisdom, strain credibility. Marriages of convenience were very much a way of life, and Georgiana's mother, for instance, would not have any reason to be shocked to learn that her daughter wasn't head over ears in love with her fiancé. Arthur Parker refuses to live in a ménage à trois with Georgiana and said fiancé because he would rather "live alone than live a lie". Well, those are exactly his options. If a gay man in Regency England wanted to get any at all, he had to "live a lie". And a Duke was expected to marry and produce heirs, whatever his inclinations. While I could buy why Arthur was upset that his Harry chose to become engaged to Georgiana of all people, I did wonder what exactly he thought would happen.

But for all the clichés, not to mention the unnecessarily drawn-out romance of Charlotte herself and its idiotic misunderstandings, Sanditon was never dull. The acting was consistently good; the actors played every scene, however melodramatic, perfectly straight. The characters were likeable. While much of the story was predictable, there were a couple of surprises and nice details: the unenlightened judge who nevertheless sees himself obliged to judge Georgiana's case fairly; some nuance added to the rakish Sir Edward's character which kept you guessing whether he was serious about Augusta or not; the vicar's realisation that he disapproves of his sister's autumnal romance with Dr Fuchs, not because Fuchs is too sciency but because he (the vicar) doesn't want to live alone; Harry's mother being perfectly aware of and unfazed by his preferences, but anxious that he should escape the gallows (and preferably secure the family's future by doing so) – these were plot points you couldn't necessarily see coming, and were welcome because of it. 

I should also mention that Arthur's rejection of the ménage à trois plan (which sounded pretty good to me, if Georgiana hadn't had a better suitor waiting in the wings) was given some credibility by his fondness for both Harry and Georgiana. He wasn't just thinking of himself; he was convinced that two people he loved would be unhappy together and didn't want to witness it. Arthur's and Georgiana's friendship was a sweet detail throughout the series, which I thought added to their respective character.

Also, while highlighting the good points of series three, Colbourne's lawyer brother turned out to be hot (and better at shaving than his bro), so there's that.

So, to circle back: why does Sanditon work? One important factor, I believe, is that we've missed series like this. That's why I mention Downton in the headline, though Downton in my opinion is a superior show. The point I'm trying to make is that long-running period dramas that focus heavily on relationships, with a sizeable cast and room for plenty of twists and turns and parallel plots, have a large and faithful fanbase which TV producers should perhaps be more mindful of. There's a reason why Downton, Upstairs Downstairs and, in its day, The Forsyte Saga became such big hits. This is why I hope The Gilded Age will eventually become a bigger thing and fill the void. And maybe ITV should give Beecham House another chance?