The Complete Jane Austen

use these resources to host the ultimate jane austen watch party

Get your friends together and enjoy the passion and wit of Jane Austen beginning January 13 at 8 p.m. on OETA.

Host a Watch Party and Win a Prize

Invite your friends over to watch one, or more, of the Jane Austen programs on OETA! See below for an example of one fan's experience!

Get into the spirit of things and make this a fun event. 

Maybe you could serve tea and scones.  Or dress up in period costumes.  Or discuss the program afterwards, similar to a book club. You can use the Jane Austen teacher guide to get great ideas for discussion questions for each program. 

Send us a picture of your Jane Austen watch party and you will be eligible to win a Jane Austen action figure.  There really is such a thing!  Email your picture to OETA at lholiday (at) oeta (dot) tv or mail it to Lori Holliday, OETA, P.O. Box 14190, Oklahoma City, OK  73113.  All watch party pics will be displayed on this web site and the winner of the contest will be notified on April 30, 2008.

Here is what Jane Austen fan Mora Harris sent in:

"Hi, This is a picture from when a bunch of my friends (all high school seniors) and I got together to watch Northanger Abbey. We got cozy under blankets and drank tea and ate dainty desserts that everyone brought. There were maybe ten of us, I took the pictures (remembering the contest at the last minute), so they aren't the greatest shots, but why not send them? Thanks for the fun opportunity"

Mora Harris and friends enjoy Northanger Abbey on OETA

Manners and money, class and circumstance, true love and happy endings - nobody did it better than Jane Austen. Now Austen fans and romantics of all stripes can enjoy a veritable feast of courtship rituals, witty discourse, Empire bodices and riding boots when Masterpiece presents “The Complete Jane Austen.”

This four-month, first-ever television event includes new productions of Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility, along with classic productions of Emma (starring Kate Beckinsale) and Pride and Prejudice (starring Colin Firth). Miss Austen Regrets, a new drama based on Austen's own letters, offers an intimate portrait of the woman behind the famous novels.

From lush landscapes to lavish drawing rooms, plucky heroines to dashing suitors, this star-studded extravaganza has it all.

Viewer Guide

The Austen extravaganza includes:

Persuasion – Sunday January 13 at 8 p.m.
Anne Elliot is destined for spinsterhood at age 27. Eight years earlier, she reluctantly refused the proposal of dashing Captain Wentworth (Rupert Penry-Jones, Casanova). When chance brings them together again, Anne soon realizes her mistake. While her better days are past, his are definitely ahead — rich and free to play the field among eligible young beauties. Anthony Head (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) co-stars as Anne’s spendthrift father.

Northanger Abbey - Sunday January 20 at 8 p.m.
In Austen’s gentle parody of gothic fiction, Felicity Jones plays romance-addict Catherine Morland. Invited to a medieval country house that appeals to her most lurid fantasies, she forms a close friendship with the younger son on the estate, Henry Tilney (JJ Feild, The Secret Life of Mrs. Beeton), but their budding romance is mysteriously cut short.

Mansfield Park - Sunday January 27 at 8 p.m.
Austen’s most complex plot stars Billie Piper (Doctor Who, The Ruby in the Smoke) as Fanny Price, who goes to live with prosperous relatives at Mansfield Park. Fanny navigates a labyrinth of intrigues and affairs among the occupants of the house, while her cousin Edmund Bertram (Blake Ritson, Inspector Lynley Mysteries) remains her stalwart confidant. Also starring Jemma Redgrave as Fanny’s observant aunt.

Miss Austen Regrets — Sunday February 3 at 8 p.m.
If nothing else, Jane Austen wrote from personal experience. Courtship she knew well — only the last act eluded her. 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. Starring Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense), Greta Scacchi (The Player) and Hugh Bonneville (Notting Hill).

Pride and Prejudice - Sundays February 10, 17 and 24 at 8 p.m.
Colin Firth (Bridget Jones’ Diary) is Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle (The Coast of Utopia) is Elizabeth Bennet in the definitive adaptation of the most-loved of all Austen novels. 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.

Emma – Sunday March 23 at 8 p.m. 
Kate Beckinsale (The Aviator) stars in the title role as the tireless matchmaker who professes no interest in matrimony for herself, only for her orphaned protégée, Harriet Smith (Samantha Morton, Longford). Still, Emma does feel a certain twinge for Frank Churchill and a brotherly regard for Mr. Knightley (Mark Strong, Prime Suspect 6).

Sense and Sensibility Sundays March 30 and April 6 at 8 p.m.
Hattie Morahan (The Golden Compass) plays levelheaded Elinor Dashwood and Charity Wakefield (Jane Eyre) her impulsive sister Marianne. Though poor, they attract a trio of very promising gentlemen: soon-to-be wealthy Edward Ferrars, heroic Colonel Brandon and Byronic John Willoughby (Dominic Cooper, The History Boys).