the filming of the ball at Netherfield, whose pace and style concentrated on elegance rather than the community enjoying themselves as at the dance at Meryton. The musicians and dancers had earpieces with music playing to allow dialogue recording. Many wide-shots of Elizabeth's and Darcy's dance at Netherfield later turned out to be unusable because of a hair in front of a lens so the editors resorted to close-up shots and material provided by a steadicam. Themes and style The adaptation received praise for its faithfulness to the novel, which highlights the importance of environment and upbringing on peoples' development, although privilege is not necessarily advantageous. Describing the adaptation as "a witty mix of love stories and social conniving, cleverly wrapped in the ambitions and illusions of a provincial gentry", critics noted that Davies's focus on sex and money and Austen's wry, incisive humour and the "deft" characterisation, prevented the television adaptation from "descending into the realm of a nicely-costumed, brilliantly-photographed melodrama". To avoid a narrator, the serial delegates the novel's first ironic sentence to Elizabeth in an early scene. The adaptation opens with a view of Darcy's and Bingley's horses as they race across a field toward the Netherfield estate, expressing vitality; Elizabeth watches them before breaking into a run. While the novel indicates Elizabeth's independence and energy in her three-mile trek to Netherfield, the adaptation of this scene also shows her rebelliousness and love of nature. In what is "perhaps the most radical revision of Austen's text", the BBC drama departs from a late 18th-century vision of emotional restraint and portrays emotions in a "modern" interpretation of the story. The novel leaves Elizabeth and the reader uncertain of Darcy's emotions and the adaptation uses additional scenes to hint at Darcy's inability to physically contain or verbally express his emotional turmoil. On the other hand, whereas the climax of the novel describes Darcy expressing his ardent love for Elizabeth at length (though Austen leaves his actual words to the reader's imagination), the adaptation elides this moment and passes directly to the next lines of dialogue. Scholars argue that activities such as billiards, bathing, fencing and swimming (see the lake scene) offer Darcy to a female gaze; he is often presented in profile by a window or a fireplace when his friends discuss Elizabeth. Many passages relating to appearance or characters' viewpoints were lifted from the novel. The novel shows