'Sanditon' returns with new storylines and resolve

"Charlotte, are you not excited to be returning?"

When that question is posed in the opening moments of the trailer for the second season of "Sanditon," it sounds very much like a humorous nod to the show's own history.

"Sanditon," based on Jane Austen's unfinished final novel, first aired in Britain in 2019 and wasn't renewed by its principal broadcaster, ITV, after disappointing viewing numbers. But the show, which had largely positive reviews, garnered a passionate following, and after a well-focused campaign by fans and a successful American run in early 2020, "Sanditon" is now returning for at least two more seasons. The six-part Season 2 premiered Sunday on PBS' "Masterpiece."

Austen had written 11 chapters of "Sanditon" and begun a 12th when she stopped working on it in early 1817, a few months before she died, at 41.

The incomplete novel, which wasn't published until 1925, is set in the quiet seaside town of Sanditon, which entrepreneur Tom Parker (played by Kris Marshall in the series) is trying to turn into a fashionable resort. Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams), a young woman from a modest farming family, befriends the Parkers after their carriage crashes near her home. Soon, she meets Tom's dashing brother Sidney (Theo James) and learns about Georgiana Lambe (Crystal Clarke), a young heiress from the West Indies and Austen's first major character of color.

That's about as far as the Austen plot goes. But by the end of the first season of the series, both women have had their romantic dreams dashed, leaving fans with a cliffhanger regarding the fate of the Charlotte-Sidney romance.

"The exciting thing about having an unfinished Austen novel was that we could keep the story going, and we set out to do an ongoing series," said Belinda Campbell, executive producer and managing director of Red Planet Pictures, which produced the show. "We ended on the main love story not resolving because we hoped it would return."

But the production added more cast and crew members of color for the new season, Clarke said. And she was excited about the new storylines that would delve into the complexities of her character's background.

"I loved that we explored issues like the sugar boycott," Clarke said, referring to a late-18th-century campaign by the abolitionist movement that encouraged people to eschew goods produced by slaves in the West Indies. "Georgiana is questioning her identity, and the contradiction that her money, which allows her to have privilege and freedom, comes from the oppression of people that look like her. Those ideas come up in Season 1, but they are really central now."

Also central is the female independence of mind and spirit that Georgiana and Charlotte embody. Despite the Austen-esque plethora of suitors — a dashing colonel, a brooding widower, a flamboyant artist, handsome soldiers — the series takes pains to show that the two central women are forging their own paths.