Dear A&E

I watched your version of Pride and Prejudice Sunday night. You made me miss the first 7 minutes of the 4400. I love that show. It was a really good show, with just the right twists and turns that made it an enjoyable end to the season, but with just enough questions to have me longing for January. Not only did I miss the first few minutes of one of my favourite shows, but I also decided to watch the season finale of The Dead Zone at a later date. Here's why I chose a video of your program over the right now season finale of a show I enjoy very much.

The characters. I have watched the 1980 BBC only version of this movie, the 1940 version of this move, read the book and am finally seeing your version and I have to say that of them all, even against the Mr. Bennet in my head, you saw him best. He was awesomely sarcastic, condescending and loving. He made me laugh out loud several times. Elizabeth Bennet was perfect. I, at first, thought her too pretty for the part, because she was prettier than her sister (who had something of a superman jaw, which is very disconcerting on a woman). In reality, this did not turn into a problem because her acting, especially her prejudice against Mr. Darcy in believing every bad report of him was so well done, I started taking her side against him. Mr. Darcy was the best part though. In the 1980 version, David Rintoul made him very cold and didn't really make me believe his was struggling with love of Elizabeth. I believed Colin Firth was going to fence his way out of being in love with Elizabeth. There were so many things about the character portrayals that I liked better in this story. Lady Catherine de Bourgh was imminently more watchable although I think that Dame Judi Dench, (who will play Catherine de Bourgh in the 2005 version with Kiera Knightly ) may change my mind. And the vicar, Mr. Collins, made me laugh as well. He was perfect.

I had once thought that The Honey was very like Mr. Darcy on paper. Until I watched the A&E version, I had not seen my husband on screen as clearly as I did with Colin Firth. Unable to stomach Mr. Collins, he just gets up and leaves him talking to himself. Not willing to deal with Caroline Bingley's criticism of Elizabeth, he used well placed put downs, but was not flowery in any sense. He told it like it was and that was sexy. And that's why I like The Honey.

All in all, A&E, I must say that watching the entire 5 hours was a joy. Thank you.

This Girl