I finally watched the 1980s BBC-era Pride and Prejudice miniseries; it's got the same tone and claustrophobic sets as the Zelah Clarke/Timothy Dalton Jane Eyre.
Immediate verdict: I did not like it. I liked it even less than the 2005 motion picture with Kiera Knightley.
Reasoning: I slept on it for awhile and I think it's because Elizabeth (played by Elizabeth Garvie) actually seems mean toward Darcy (played by David Rintoul) rather than prejudiced and offended by his pride. There's a point where she tells him "Save your breath to cool your porridge. I will save mine to [something] my song." And she plays and sings at her Aunt Phillips's evening party which completely throws the timeline off. Actually, there are a lot of timeline issues comparing this adaptation to the book and that is also my second problem. The third problem is that all the girls seem to be of the same age, more like quintuplets, and I seriously thought that the girl playing Lydia looked older than the girl playing Jane and Georgiana Darcy looked just as old as Elizabeth rather than looking much younger. In comparison to both the 2005 movie and 1995 miniseries (with Jennifer Ehle/Colin Firth), this production was completely buttoned up and shot almost entirely indoors. The other two productions make use of the beautiful scenery to convey a sense of freedom and space (so problem number four).
Thought-out verdict: I still don't like it - but it did have a nice drawing that unfolded at the beginning of each episode (during the opening credits) that went through the major events of the episode. Kind of like a dumb-show.
The 1995 A&E miniseries is still my favorite.
Current book-in-progress: The Story of Mankind, The Lord of the Flies, The Shakespeare Wars, and Songs for the Missing (an ARC from Stewart O'Nan)
Current knitted item: Gray neckwarmer, two buttonholes down (this thing is kind of ugly)
Current movie obsession: Juno
Current iTunes loop: anything (I got my new iPod so I've been enjoying the ability to listen to whatever I want regardless of whether it was downloaded or ripped from CD - the old one has a few issues with that) and I bought the new Madonna CD (awesome dance tracks)
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