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Calling All Jane Austen Fans: ETV Presents “The Complete Jane Austen”

New Adaptations to Air Beginning Sunday, Jan. 13 at 9 p.m.

For Immediate Release
December 20, 2007

Columbia, SC...With a writers’ strike plaguing Hollywood, ETV offers television viewers a reprieve, allowing them to spend seven Sunday evenings with arguably one of the greatest writers in all of literature: Jane Austen.

Beginning Jan. 13 at 9 p.m., ETV airs Masterpiece Theater’s “The Complete Jane Austen,” featuring all-new productions of “Persuasion,” “Northanger Abbey,” “Mansfield Park” and “Sense and Sensibility.” The lineup, which extends into February and March, also includes the critically-acclaimed production of “Emma,” starring Kate Beckinsale, the Emmy Award-winning “Pride and Prejudice”--which helped make Colin Firth a leading man--and a new drama based on Austen’s own bittersweet love life, “Miss Austen Regrets.”

The line-up of Austen favorites airs at 9 p.m. on the following days:

• Sunday, Jan. 13 - “Persuasion” - Anne Elliot is destined for spinsterhood at age 27 after being persuaded eight years earlier to refuse the proposal of dashing Captain Wentworth. Then chance brings them together again. While her better days are past, his are definitely ahead, as he’s now rich and free to play the field among eligible young beauties.

• Sunday, Jan. 20 - “Northanger Abbey” - Invited to a medieval country house that appeals to her most lurid fantasies, romance-addict Catherine Morland forms a close friendship with the younger son on the estate, Henry Tilney. But their budding romance is mysteriously cut short.

• Sunday, Jan. 27 - “Mansfield Park” - The unlikely heroine Fanny Price goes to live with prosperous relatives at Mansfield Park. Price navigates a labyrinth of intrigues and affairs among the occupants of the house, while her cousin Edmund Bertram remains her stalwart confidant.

• Sunday, Feb. 3 - “Miss Austen Regrets” - This film biography dramatizes Austen’s lost loves: Harris Bigg, whose proposal she accepted and then rejected; Edward Brydges, whom she also refused; the tongue-tied vicar she teased mercilessly; and the young surgeon who arrived on the scene too late to steal her heart.

• Sunday, Feb. 10 - “Pride and Prejudice” - Colin Firth defined the role of “Mr. Darcy” in this production of "Pride and Prejudice."  With five daughters, no sons and an entailed estate, the elder Bennets are in dire straits as they try to arrange advantageous marriages. Wedding bells ring three times, but the path to true love is tortuous indeed.

• Sunday, March 23 - “Emma” - Kate Beckinsale stars in the title role as the tireless matchmaker who professes no interest in matrimony for herself, only for her orphaned protegee, Harriet Smith. Still, Emma does feel a certain twinge for Frank Churchill and a brotherly regard for Mr. Knightley.

• Sunday, March 30 - “Sense and Sensibility” - Though poor, the levelheaded Elinor Dashwood and her impulsive sister Marianne attract a trio of very promising gentlemen: soon-to-be wealthy Edward Ferrars, heroic Colonel Brandon and Byronic John Willoughby.

South Carolina ETV is the state's public educational broadcasting network with 11 television and eight radio transmitters, and a multi-media educational system in more than 2,500 schools, colleges, businesses and government agencies. Using television, radio and the web, SCETV's mission is to enrich lives by educating children, informing and connecting citizens, celebrating our culture and environment and instilling the joy of learning.

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For more information, contact Rob Schaller at (803) 737-6556 or rschaller@scetv.org.