The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Well, well, well, I had to post about this sometime. If you are friends with me on Facebook, you are probably already aware of my love for this... I guess you could call it a show. I call it a show. *shrugs* Anyways, for those of you who don't know, it is a web series about Elizabeth Bennet as she vlogs about her life. Yes, they are actual actors playing the characters and there is a team of writers that write scripts for each episode, but it's told like Lizzie is a real woman living in today's world.

As it's tradition in these kinds of posts, I'm going to talk about how I was introduced to this. This last August I was browsing on my other blog and (if I recall correctly) came across a post that had a screencap of Lizzie that was labeled as Lizzie Bennet. Recognizing the name from Pride and Prejudice I was intrigued at

Lizzie as Mrs. Bennet

first, but thought it was just someone taking a picture of themselves and being silly or something. After browsing a bit longer, I came across a video labeled: "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries- Tale of Two Gents - Ep: 38". I recognized one of the girls in the thumbnail from the picture earlier. Curious, I immediately pressed play and watched as two young women claiming to be Lizzie and Jane Bennet took score of the good and bad qualities between Wickham and Collins to see who had more. I found it very entertaining and searched to see if there were more. There were. The one I had just watched was the latest one, so I went back and watched the very first one and continued on until I was caught up. Now, I'm still watching it. There's a new video every Monday and Thursday at 9:00am.

So basically it's telling the story of Pride and Prejudice in modern times. Everyone knows the story about the crazy mother who wants to marry off her daughters and how Lizzie meets and doesn't get on with Darcy at the start, but how they gradually start to fall in love. Yeahhhh... it's only one of my favorite stories EVER! But we've heard it so many times, why should this one be so great? Let me tell ya...

Lydia as Bing Lee and Lizzie as Darcy

They put such amazing twists on some things and change certain aspects of it that it's such a fresh new take on it and I find it very enjoyable. You mostly see Lizzie (because well, they're her diaries), but you start meeting other characters like Wickham and Collins and Bing Lee (Bingley) and Caroline and even eventually... Darcy 8D. But most of the time, Lizzie does costume theater when she's talking about people or events. Meaning, she (or someone else) dresses up in a certain costume for a certain person and acts out a scene that has or could happen. So every time she puts on the doctor's costume you know it's Bing Lee, or when she puts on the bowtie and newsboy hat it's Darcy, or when she puts on the goggles it's Wickham, or the flower in her hair is Jane, etc.

Also, how they don't JUST focus on the story. That is to say, they don't stick so strictly to how it happens in the book. It actually is a modern woman living in a modern world with modern day problems. So there's talk about school, and shopping, and pirates and ninjas, and stuff XD.

Charlotte, Lizzie, Lydia, and Jane

CHARACTERS (thus far):
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bennet: played by Ashley Clements- Middle Bennet sister and the narrator of most of the vlogs. She is a graduate student studying mass communications and strongly believes women should be highly educated and do more with their lives than simply pursue husbands.
Charlotte Lu: played by Julia Cho- Lizzie's best friend and the director/editor of her vlog. Charlotte wants to be a filmmaker and convinced Lizzie to start her vlog as part of a school project.
Jane Bennet: played by Laura Spencer- Eldest of the Bennet children, working as an overworked, underpaid merchandise coordinator in the fashion world. She is incredibly polite and sweet and, according to Lizzie, "practically perfect in every way". When Bing Lee moves into town, Jane is immediately smitten with him, much to the absolute joy of her mother.
Lydia Bennet: played by Mary Kate Wiles- Youngest Bennet child. She is "feisty, energetic, and unapologetic." She has also created a series of her own videos starring herself, her cousin Mary, and her cat, Kitty, who apparently follows her everywhere.
Bing Lee: played by Christopher Sean- ("Bingley" in Pride and Prejudice) Young, wealthy medical student who moved into the Netherfield House in the same neighborhood as the Bennets. He quickly

Lizzie and Lydia

falls for Jane Bennet and begins to date her. His sister is Caroline and his best friend is William Darcy.
Caroline Lee: played by Jessica Jade Andres- Bing Lee's sister. She is aware of Lizzie's diaries and appears to help Lizzie keep Bing and Darcy from discovering them during Lizzie and Jane's stay at Netherfield. But what are her true intentions? *taps chin in thought*
Ricky Collins: played by Maxwell Glick- Former classmate of Lizzie and Charlotte's with a wide vocabulary who asks that he be addressed only as Mr. Collins. He has received a large sum of money and is attempting to foray into the world of web video. Darcy's aunt, Catherine de Bourgh, is his benefactress and venture capitalist, and he greatly admires her.
William Darcy: played by Daniel Gordh- Bing Lee's best friend and the wealthy CEO of an entertainment corporation. He was staying with Bing and Caroline at Netherfield. He is described by Lizzie as snobby and condescending. Darcy surprises Lizzie by confessing his love for her when she is visiting Charlotte. For a LONG time, Darcy was referred to but never seen and was often impersonated by Lizzie and other characters.
George Wickham: played by Wes Anderhold- Coach of a university swim team and a friend and former love-interest of Lizzie's. George has a past with Darcy.
Fitz Williams: played by Craig Frank- ("Colonel Fitzwilliam" in Pride and Prejudice) Darcy's outgoing and lively friend and colleague. Lizzie meets him while dining with Catherine de Bourgh.
Georgiana (Gigi) Darcy: played by Allison Paige- William Darcy's sister and a graphic designer at Pemberly Digital. She was once into swimming, but gave it up and is now nationally ranked in tennis.
Mrs. Bennet: Lizzie's mother. She appears to be a traditional Southern woman, eager to see her daughters married and interested in little else besides neighborhood gossip.
Mr. Bennet: He appears more calm and levelheaded than his wife, though one of his favorite activities, according to Lizzie, is winding her up.
Catherine de Bourgh: Darcy's aunt and an extremely wealthy venture capitalist who is the primary investor in Collins & Collins, the new media firm run by Mr. Collins. Catherine is very attached to her sickly dog who she calls Annie Kins. She is quick with her opinions and judgements.

Click to enlarge

There's lots of good times whilst watching these videos. For example, referring back to Darcy. I mentioned in his character description that we didn't actually meet him for a LONG time. We (the fandom) dealt with it for a while, but once it got to like episode 45-50 people were complaining (when I say complaining, I mean just little comments like "When will we see Darcy?" "Will we ever get to meet Darcy?" and whatever. The LBD fandom is surprising nice). Actually there were comments WAY before that, but it started getting really bad by that point. It was eventually confirmed that we would meet him eventually. I had my bets on which point of the story that would be (I was right, just FYI).

I just had to include this because I find it quite hilarious

Finally, it got to that point. He walks in the room at the end of the video... AND YOU COULD ONLY SEE HIM FROM THE NECK DOWN!!!
The fandom exploded. We had to wait until the next video came out until we could see his face! I swear, that was the longest two days of my life! This was called Darcy Day Part I.
Darcy Day Part II was when the next episode finally came out and we got to see his face. Once again, the fandom exploded.

There have been several events like this where the fandom explodes, although Darcy Day takes the cake for the biggest one. It's the best when things like that happen. Because even though you know the story, you still wait in anticipation for what's going to happen next. Darcy Day was different since we were only waiting to see what he looked like, but there are other instances where I'm so excited to find out what happens next or whatever. I like trying to figure out what's happening in the preview clip at the end of every episode. (BTW, the LBD fandom sucks at reading lips XD)

Wow, this turned out longer that I thought it would. Welp *shrugs* Here's a sort of trailer to end this rather extensive post:

So, if you're a Pride and Prejudice fan, you MUST watch these videos! They are so great! I'll even give you a link to the entire playlist right here.