And excuse me, please, but where are the Pallisers, the Bellamys, and the Poldarks? Because you've gotten rid of their familiar family portraits. I suppose you shoved them where you shoved Alistair Cooke and Russell Baker's leather chair and fireplace. Criminy, don't even get me started on the loss of the music that everyone knew as "The Masterpiece Theatre Song" but no one really knew as Mouret's "Rondeau" until they thought about choosing it as their wedding march.

What do you give me instead? A truncated and Casio'd "Rondeau," photo overlays of recent specials, that damn Kleenex book -- all which smack roundly of a General Foods International Coffee Commercial -- and Gillian Anderson. Not just Gillian Anderson, but Gillian Anderson sitting -- rather uncomfortably, obviously -- on a three-legged stool. Fine, maybe it's four-legged, but it's clearly a stool because CLEARLY it has no back to sink against.

Yes, Gillian Anderson has both House of Mirth and Bleak House on her -ography. And yes, she has that amazing mane of titian (oh, sorry, Masterpiece -- RED) hair, but I'm totally distracted from her classic beauty by both the unnecessarily soft focus (she's not Barbara Walters!), and her oddly accented delivery that sounds like she's trying to be Madonna trying to be British. She's stiff and over-rehearsed. She's not conversational, she's not personable. I thought we were trying to get people to like Jane Austen, not scare them away from it.

And what's up with that impersonal, silky red background? Is this PBS classic drama or a "My Moment, My Dove" commercial?

Basically, PBS, you just can't be trusted. I know as soon as I turn my back, you're going to trash the Edward Gorey opening to Mystery! and dump Diana Rigg.

You've done it already, haven't you?