Many reviewers positively compared the TV drama to the 1996 feature film starring Paltrow. "People"s Tom Gliatto found it to be superior to the 1996 film, attributing this to Beckinsale's performance: "Paltrow played the part with a swanlike haughtiness. Beckinsale is vibrantly girlish and romantic. And she looks smashing in Empire-waist dresses." Gliatto also positively commented on Davies' script for "capturnot just Austen's light charm but the pinpricks of her social criticism." Caryn James of "The New York Times" added that in a story with an unlikeable heroine, Beckinsale "walks [the fine line beautifully... is plainer looking than Ms. Paltrow's, and altogether more believable and funnier. She came to the role well prepared, after playing another socially self-assured comic figure in the recent film "Cold Comfort Farm"." James also lauded the screenplay for doing "a deft job of letting viewers pick up the social cues that Emma misses" and for indicating why Emma and Knightley are well-suited for each other.