‘The Other Bennet Sister’ Boss Explains Big Miss Baxter Book Change

Mary Bennet (Ella Bruccoleri) is immediately interested in Tom Hayward (Donal Finn) when they meet in The Other Bennet Sister, a spinoff of Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice. But she quickly moves on from her crush when she learns that Hayward is in a romantic relationship with Miss Ann Baxter (Varada Sethu). But those who haven’t read The Other Bennet Sister book might not know that Miss Baxter isn’t in it. We asked the show’s creator to explain why she created the character for the adaptation. Warning: The Other Bennet Sister Episodes 1-4 spoilers ahead!

The Other Bennet Sister premiered with three episodes on Wednesday, May 6, with one episode weekly after that on BritBox. It depicts Mary’s journey of self-discovery, and growing closer to Mr. Hayward and Mr. Ryder (Laurie Davidson) is a big part of that. Mr. Hayward and Mr. Ryder are both single in the book, but Hayward is spoken for in the show.

Hayward and Baxter have an agreement that they’re going to get married one day, but they’re not engaged just yet. Their relationship has been stagnant for a while, and both are showing signs of growing apart from each other.

Hayward seems quite taken with Mary in Episode 4, when he staged a private poetry reading in a secret garden for Mary and the Gardiners, her aunt and uncle (Indira Varma and Richard Coyle). Finn told us that Hayward may be ignorant of what this gesture says about his feelings for Mary and Ann. In his mind, this was a platonic gesture, but the romance of it all begs to differ.

Sarah Quintrell created The Other Bennet Sister series. She tells us why they needed Miss Baxter. Basically, Mr. Hayward being immediately available didn’t provide enough conflict for TV.

“For me, it was about balancing Mary’s journey of self-discovery, which is first and foremost what this show is, but also, I needed the romance to be important, but not everything. And without Miss Baxter, there was nothing really in the way of Mary just getting to know Hayward and them becoming very close,” Quintrell explains. “That was tricky on-screen. We had to have a real economy of storytelling; it’s a 500-page book coming down into five hours of television.”