“Sanditon” – the show that took two centuries to launch – will end this spring.
PBS has announced that the third sepason, starting March 19, will be the last. In that season, several newcomers will arrive to complicate the fractured love life of Charlotte (Rose Williams, shown here).
Jane Austen had barely started her “Sanditon” novel when she died in 1817, at 41. Afterward, some authors tried to complete the story, with little success. Then came the PBS/British co-production.
Scriptwriter Andrew Davies said he’d used all of Austen’s material by the end of the first episode. His eight-episode season ran in 2019, ending in fire and despair. It was popular in the U.S., but the British producer dropped out. That, plus Covid complications, left the show in limbo.
It finally returned in 2022 with a new writer and with Charlotte (Rose Williams) still perplexed. After mourning her original love interest, she was drawn to a sullen widower and a dashing soldier. The latter turned out to be a scoundrel … as was the soldier who courted her sister … and the artist who courted her rich friend Georgina.
Now there’s one more season to sort it all out. Arriving are a matriarch eager to find marriages for her son and daughter … a lawyer who is the brother of the widower … and a potential investor for the plan to turn Sanditon into a resort town.
Before that, “Masterpiece” plans a seven-week “All Creatures Great and Small” season and a four-part “Tom Jones.”