Have We Given Up on “Happily Ever After”?

First, an admission: I have a guilty pleasure in costume dramas, especially the kind that show up on PBS. FromDownton Abbeyto Lark Rise to Candleford toVictoria to the endless adaptations of Jane Austen novels, I love to let my feminine side come out to play whenever a show set in the past comes along.

Like many PBS fans, I’ve enjoyed the recent seriesSanditon, based on an unfinished novel by Jane Austen. And — apparently like many other fans — I was bitterly disappointed by the show’s...