The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

So a number of months ago, somebody posted a video from the Lizzie Bennet Diaries on Facebook, and since I had just finished watching the BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries with Sara and was feeling obsessed with anything Jane Austen, I decided to give it a go and see what it was all about. It took about 2.5 seconds before I was hooked and from then until the series ended, I eagerly rushed home from work every Monday and Thursday so that I could quickly squeeze the new episode in before supper.

What is the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, you might ask? It is an original web series that aired on YouTube, created by Hank Green and Bernie Su, and is a modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice! Now, obviously there are a lot of modern adaptations of Jane Austen's beloved novel, and I'm pretty sure that many of them just don't do the book justice (*cough* Keira Knightley version). But while this series of vlogs puts an extremely modern spin on the story, I found myself being drawn further into their world.

The premise of the series is that Lizzie Bennet is a 24-year old grad student who starts a video blog with her best friend Charlotte as part of a class project. Of course, her sisters Jane and Lydia are a big part of her life and the vlogs (Mary Bennet is a cousin and Kitty Bennet is... well, a cat), as are the rich-hot-and-single Bing Lee and the aloof Mr. Darcy.

One of Lizzie's trademarks is her use of costume theatre to portray everyone who she talks about, especially her mother. I think she's portrayed just about everyone on the show, and the impressions are usually dead on, with just enough caricature to make it the exaggeration that it is.

I'm in the middle of re-watching the series, and this time around I just find myself marveling at the actors. I'm literally watching Lydia Bennet deteriorate before my eyes, and Mary Kate Wiles just kills it! You don't even realize how gradual the change is until you go back and compare episode 1 Lydia to episode 87 Lydia, but the differences are night and day. And don't even get me started on the way Lizzie slowly fall in love with Darcy. Even though I knew what was going to happen, I found myself rooting for her the entire series.

Basically, if you are all about Pride and Prejudice, then you must give this series a chance. Look, I've even embedded the first episode, so you don't have any excuse to not start watching right now! And make sure you don't miss Lydia's spin-off vlogs. There's also the Collins&Collins channel and Gigi's Domino demonstrations that help tell the story later on. Seriously, it's like a whole new world that's been created for these characters.

But consider yourself warned--once you've started, you won't want to stop. So give yourself plenty of time. Like, say, a lazy Saturday when you don't really have anything else to do. :)

*Update: Here's a link to a YouTube channel that put together all of the videos in the series, in chronological order (including Lydia's videos, some from the Collins&Collins channel, Gigi's Domino demonstrations, and also Maria Lu's videos): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KisuGP2lcPs&list=PLS_PzAkdmDSI-KhZcGAFIveX0RC6jGhOb