If you love your period dramas but episodes of Bridgerton and Downton Abbey are a bit thin on the ground, we’ve got you sorted. The third season of British historical drama Sanditon is now streaming on BINGE and Foxtel NOW.
Now in its final season (never fear, the first two are available too), Sanditon is based on an unfinished novel by Victorian literary legend Jane Austen, with the scant 11 chapters she wrote adapted for the first episode. Our heroine is Charlotte Heywood, played by Reign’s Rose Williams, a spirited young woman who relocates to the titular town, an emerging seaside resort undergoing some radical social changes as the merchant class competes with the traditional aristos.
Over the last two seasons, she’s entertained a number of suitors, but seems to have settled on farmer’s son Ralph Starling (Cai Brigden), with the pair engaged to be married when we meet them on their return to Sanditon this season. However, last year’s model—and Charlotte’s former employer— Alexander Colbourne (Benedict Lloyd-Hughes of Skins and The Crown) is still around, and the largely unspoken connection between them is as strong as ever. It’s all repressed desires, incipient scandals, and railing against the social conventions of the day from here on…
A sumptuously mounted Regency romance, Sanditon is a treat for fans of literary love, featuring plenty of fleeting glances and lonely longing, the odd passionate clinch or two, and plenty of scandals and social brinksmanship to boot. A solid cast of British screen regulars fill out the ensemble, including Beyond Paradise’s Kris Marshall as ambitious local entrepreneur Tom Parker, Shaun of the Dead’s Kate Ashfield as his wife, Mary, plus American import Crystal Clarke as Charlotte’s lovelorn BFF, Georgianna Lambe.
Sanditon is perfectly pitched comfort viewing; for those with a yen for period romance, it’s a must-see.
