Jane Tranter knows good television. The former BBC programming head (at one point during her tenure with the broadcaster, her official title was Head of Fiction, which put her in charge of original drama series, original comedy series, original films, and overseas acquisitions, phew). In 2015, Tranter left the BBC to form production shingle Bad Wolf with Julie Gardner, so named after a “Doctor Who” storyline (yes, Tranter also helped bring back the beloved sci-fi series when she was at the BBC).

In the past decade-plus, Bad Wolf has helped make series as diverse and lauded as “The Night of,” the most recent “Doctor Who” incarnation, “A Discovery of Witches,” “Lady in the Lake,” “Industry,” and recent hit “The Other Bennet Sister.” It’s that latest series’ success that Tranter is touting these days.

No wonder. The charming 10-episode series, based on Janice Hadlow’s novel of the same name, was a smash hit in its homeland, becoming the UK’s biggest drama across all platforms and streamers since May 2025. When it arrived in the U.S. and Canada via streamer BritBox, interest stayed big, driving a ton of new subscribers (more than 40 percent of whom have watched the series on the streamer). But Tranter never counts on a success.

“I have learned over the years to really focus on each day, to really focus on why everyone is making this, and let us try and enjoy the process of making it, and to strive and challenge each other to make it as good as it possibly can be,” Tranter told IndieWire over Zoom. “I have long since learned not to make it for success. You can’t make it for the outcome. You hope for the outcome, clearly, you wouldn’t make television if you weren’t in the business of wanting millions and millions of people to see the stories that you want to tell, but you can never guarantee it.”

The Ella Bruccoleri-starring series follows the delightful coming-of-age of Mary Bennet, the forgotten and maligned middle sister of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” It’s no secret that this writer is a huge fan of the series, and so I was already delighted to speak to Tranter on the morning of June 24, when the show’s finale episode hit BritBox. My enthusiasm only increased when a three-part Christmas special was announced that same morning, which Tranter happily shared details about.

It’s clear Tranter loves the show, and that kind of passion has long driven her work. Tranter said that, in her early days at the BBC, she would feel a spark for the projects she knew she’d personally love to watch (she particularly mentioned “Wives and Daughters,” “The Way We Live Now,” and the 2008 “Sense and Sensibility” miniseries), but she also worked “to connect with a much broader audience than that. I tried very hard not just to commission to my own taste.”

When she gets that spark, Tranter holds fast. She said she is always willing to keep pushing for things, like Steven Zaillian’s “The Night of” (which “took two Obama presidencies to make”) and, yes, “The Other Bennet Sister,” which was first pitched to her nearly a decade ago.

“I’m not saying that there is a badge of honor to take a really long time, … but then what you have to wait for is, when is the right time for the world to see this?,” Tranter said. “I think that if we had made ‘The Other Bennet Sister’ a few years ago, [maybe in] the time just after COVID when the whole world seemed to be kind of booming and it was like, it’s OK, the bad times are behind us, Mary may not have had so many of the eyes of the world on her so compassionately in the same way. But now the world needs Mary Bennet and can see her and recognize her and respond to her. Sometimes, it’s about waiting for the right moment. I’m a great believer in right project, right moment. And if it’s a project that I’m passionate about, I won’t stop.”

That Jane Austen has a ton of fans, especially in the UK, isn’t exactly the most obvious recipe for success. When I mentioned off-hand that Tranter, Hadlow, series creator and head writer Sarah Quintrell, and the whole gang must have felt pretty secure that “The Other Bennet Sister” would hit in their native country, Tranter caught it.

“I don’t think, honestly, we did feel that secure,” she said. “I think that there is a strong fanbase for Jane Austen, but that fanbase traditionally has been quite a small one. The wonderful thing that has happened is that that fanbase has broadened and demographically it’s got much younger. I felt that actually telling the story of Mary Bennet, the one who Jane Austen just sees out of the corner of her eye and doesn’t even really show her the mercy or give her the time to satirize her, that felt like a very modern thing and that in and of itself would’ve connected with an audience.”

What is it about this series that hit with those long-time fans and lots of newbies? (Tranter noted that she’s been delighted and surprised by the number of people, “including men in their seventies, [who] have said to me that ‘costume drama is not really my thing, but I really loved Mary Bennet.’”)

“It’s fresh and it’s half hour [episodes], that gives it a lightness. It’s painful, but it’s also really funny,” Tranter said. “I began to think as we were nearing going through the post-production and putting the music on and looking at the grade and seeing its beauty and its wit and its emotion, that this sort of transcends being a Jane Austen adaptation or a period piece or any of those things, and therefore it might do OK in the U.S.” (She also pointed to the incredible support of BritBox, who “really put their shoulders behind it.”)

It has certainly exceeded that hope for an “OK” showing. Thank that spark.

“I remember very distinctly, at the read-thru just saying, ‘I think what the world needs is some joy and some kindness right now. This is what this story is about. Let us make this with joy and kindness. If anyone wants to watch it, hurrah, and if they don’t, we will have changed each other’s lives,’” she said. “And that is exactly what the team went on to do.”

She continued, “The thing that I am completely over the moon about is the world’s reaction to Mary Bennet and what Mary Bennet stands for. It gives me real hope and it’s so joyful that someone like Mary could be the subject of so much conversation and across such a wide demographic of the audience. So, obviously, we are thrilled that we’ll have another go at seeing Mary Bennet.”

Is there a chance for other projects in this same world? One of the real joys of “The Other Bennet Sister” was the ways in which it reorients our understanding of many classic Austen characters. Of course, that means Mary and her sisters and their mother, but the first season of the show notably ends with some news about Caroline Bingley, who has decamped from London to chase her own romantic dreams. Tranter, no surprise, loves her too. And we know what it means when she loves something.

“I love Caroline Bingley too,” Tranter said with a smile. “That’s all I’m going to say. I’ll just leave it there.”

Source:  https://www.indiewire.com/features/interviews/other-bennet-sister-jane-tranter-success-1235202037/