I'll start by establishing two facts: I've read Pride and Prejudice 21 times, and I rarely watch television. In part because I have horrible self control—either I watch nothing or I binge the whole series in a matter of days, sleep schedule be damned. I'm also suspicious of spin-offs and sequels that seem to be milking existing IP for its fanbase rather than actually being good. So when my friend invited me to watch The Other Bennet Sister with her, I was equal parts curious and wary. Jane Austen is my holy grail author. Would this series do her justice? (FWIW, the show is adapted from Janice Hadlow's 2020 novel, itself well-received.) As someone who gets served *a lot* of Pride and Prejudice content online, I wasn't surprised when The Other Bennet Sister started getting served in my feed. So I said yes—and now my big question is, why haven't the big American streaming services brought it onto their platforms?!
This British Jane Austen Spinoff Has a Whopping 97% Rotten Tomatoes Score—Why Hasn't Netflix Optioned It?!
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If you're unfamiliar with the plot of Pride and Prejudice, Austen's most beloved work focuses on the escapades of the Bennet family. With five daughters and an entailed estate passing to their male cousin, the girls—lead by the witty, playful, sharp Elizabeth—must make a marriage match, lest they be consigned (and resigned) to destitution. Jane, Elizabeth, Kitty and Lydia all have charms to recommend them. Mary, the middle child, struggles with being less beautiful, less vivacious, less quick-witted than the rest, a fact the girls' mother unrelentingly holds over her head.
The Other Bennet Sister picks up where Pride and Prejudice left off. With all her sisters married, Mary remains, unhappy, in her parents's home at Longbourn under her mother's demeaning iron fist. Then, her father's sudden death pushes her into the glittery world of London with her aunt, uncle and cousins. There, the wallflower of the Bennet family learns what it means to bloom—with the help of an unexpected love triangle that throws her world (and spectacles) askew.
The series was surprising in several ways. Notably, every unlikeable character in the source material (Mr. Collins! Caroline Bingley! Lady Catherine de Bourgh! Mrs. Bennet!) has some sort of expanded, redeeming character arc. If you had told me that I'd leave the final episode thinking Mr. Collins and Caroline weren't half bad, I wouldn've told you to shut up. But here I am, scratching my head, wondering if they each need a spin-off of their own?!
I also thought that Mary's character was incredibly well-executed by lead actress Ella Bruccoleri. In Austen's novel, Mary is socially awkward; Bruccoleri plays the character with mannerisms suggesting Asperger's, which felt appropriate. The performance didn't reduce Mary to a caricature, nor did it paint her tragically. Rather, the series was incredibly funny and heartwarming, Mary's social foibles making her endearing and not the butt of a joke. The storyline is also inventive and unexpected—I always thought that Elizabeth was the iconoclast of Pride and Prejudice; Mary's turn in the spotlight has me changing my mind. The series's ending is surprising but makes sense for her character; what happens after that is just a little cherry on top. It made me...dare I say it...think Mary might have the ending I actually wanted when I envisioned myself in this world.
The last thing my friend and I couldn't stop raving about was the constant presence of Mary's spectacles throughout the series. As someone who has been fastidiously tracking Ugly Duckling core (and who has worn glasses since she was 8), it was refreshingly vindicating to have a heroine who never needs to cast aside her glasses to be desirable to others. There are innumerable moments in pop culture, from Wicked to The Princess Diaries, where the heroine must have her glasses broken in order for to be transformed into someone worth seeing. In key moments throughout The Other Bennet Sister, Mary's spectacles are firmly anchored to the bridge of her nose. It seems insignificant, but IYKYK.
Though I've been served snippets of the show on social media, I hadn't quite grasped the magnitude of its success. Per the BBC, The Other Bennet Sister has been the most successful drama across all UK platforms since May 2025, and the outlet's most successful social media campaign of the year. It also has a dazzling 97 percent on the Tomatometer and 91 percent approval on the Popcornmeter. As a TV skeptic, I'm here to say those scores are most definitely warranted. And now, if Netflix or Hulu or HBO could onboard this show, I think we'd have another dark horse à la Heated Rivalry on our hands...
