At the start of this, the fourth and final episode of ITV’s genre-bending comedy-time-travel-costume drama Lost In Austen, things were at a very low ebb for Amanda Price, and the characters of Pride and Prejudice that she has been residing with since finding a portal into the novel in her bathroom. Could she get the plot back on track – and would she want to, now she knows she loves Darcy?

We meet Amanda where we left her last week – absolutely devastated by Darcy’s decision that he cannot marry her (despite having said he loves her) because, quite simply, she “is not a maid.” She walks away and we hear her sad inner monologue: “I have nowhere to go. But that’s okay, because the worst that could happen is that I just… die.” Things are little better for the Bennett sisters, and Jane in particular, who has married Mr Collins even though she and Bingley are clearly in love (and Collins is clearly repellent).

I assumed that this episode would be a case of Amanda miraculously returning the characters to their rightful partners, and getting herself home, but in fact things just got further and further away from their ‘proper’ course. Lydia runs off with Bingley to Hammersmith, thinking it a liberal paradise from Amanda’s description of her home (and language and manners and world view and…) leading Mr Bennett to ask Amanda to take him to her house.

And here came the first of a number of clunky conceits used to get round the ungetroundable – Wickham, unasked, rode ahead and covered for Amanda’s lack of home and family. Why? Goodness knows. In this Pride and Prejudice, Wickham is one of the good guys, but this is still thoroughly odd. As is the fact that Amanda finds herself back in modern-day Hammersmith for no apparent reason,and that Lady Catherine agrees to help annul Jane’s marriage, just for a laugh. All of this gave the distinct impression of Guy Andrews having written himself into a corner and not having a clue how to get out. He certainly knew how to write an ending that could either be a full stop or an invitation for a second series, though – Amanda can’t bring herself to leave Darcy, and Lizzie is so taken with modern life that she looks set to return. A straight swap then. But where does that leave the novel?

This episode did at least still have some of the wonderful one-liners that have graced the whole series (such as Lizzie’s announcement that she wouldn’t fit into her Georgian dress anymore because she’s gone macrobiotic) but Andrews had taken the plot so far away from Austen’s novel that he just couldn’t find a way back. This was, it has to be said, a very muddled final episode which didn’t do justice to the fun and innovation that have made the series so enjoyable.