Excessively Diverted

Sammi and Beau discuss the coming hiatus, Season 3, and the future of Excessively Diverted.

Sammi and Beau return to Pemberley Digital for Bernie Su's take on Emma, Emma Approved.Not just a lifestyle coach/matchmaker, Emma Woodhouse is a savvy business woman and personal brand, along with her business partner Alex Knightley and adorable assistant Harriet Smith, Emma is determined to be the face of Lifestyle Excellence (whatever that means?) So grab your tablets, your Kate Spade binders and your structured blazers and join us for Emma Approved, part 1 of 2.

This week Sammi and Beau are joined by superstar podcaster Gena Radcliffe of the show Kill By Kill to discuss Whit Stillman's 2016 comedic masterpiece 'Love & Friendship,' based on the novella 'Lady Susan.' While Love & Friendship is not a modern adaptation, it is probably Austen's most subversive surviving work, and the scheming Lady Susan is played to absolute perfection by Kate Beckinsale with support from the marvelous Chloe Sevigny.

Sammi and Beau are Bollywood bound once more for this Tamil adaptation of Sense & Sensibility. While it took a few minutes to acclimate to this movie, we found it incredibly charming with well drawn characters, humor, lots of entertaining musical numbers, and plenty of sweetness. These might be the best versions of Elinor and Marianne in any modern adaptation that we've seen! As an additional bonus, this movie features a cat wedding, so this definitely checked all of our boxes.

A slightly intoxicated Sammi and Beau are joined by returning guest Karolinn and first-time guest Brian to discuss the 2015 Straight outta Salt Lake City series Austentatious, which asks "what would happen if the Dashwood sisters, Emma Woodhouse, and Elizabeth Bennet were all single career gals who lived on a series of sound stages? There is little here to recommend the series, from creepy, miscast, and poorly adapted characters to cheap sets and some rampant misogyny. If you were considering watching this, our advice would be "don't."

Warning to listeners, this might be our most profanity-riddled episode yet.

Beau and Sammi road trip to the Oregon coast where they get the rare opportunity to play 'Marrying Mr. Darcy' with Award-Winning author Linda Beutler and previous guest Karolinn Fiscaletti.

Karen M. Cox joins Beau to talk about her new novella, The Journey Home and her 1970's Emma-inspired extravaganza, I Could Write A Book. Karen convinces Beau to give Knightley a second chance, which is a miracle unto itself.

This week we are joined by BOTH of the amazing ladies of Drunk Austen to talk about Hallmark's rather sanitized version of Teri Wilson's book 'Unleashing Mr. Darcy.' We unravel a vast conspiracy of money laundering and sex dungeon in the D.C. private school system, but mostly because we were kind of bored and hangry.

Sammi and Beau close out the last chapter of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries with some real emotional highs and lows. As things start to stray into the dangerously cute zone for Lizzie and Darcy, news from home sends Lizzie rushing back, leaving all uncertain. Lydia gets a terrible shock and the Bennet Sisters rely on each other to cope and heal. Charlotte brings good news and Lizzie gets the best sort of birthday surprise. And in the end, the future looks very bright indeed.

A lot of big events happening in between a *whole lot of filler* in these episodes. Jane gets real, Lizzie screws up big time, and Darcy plays along.