The timing is the evidence. Fielding was writing the Independent column that became the novel while the BBC serial was airing and the country was talking about it, and she has said the book is a straight lift of Austen's plot on the grounds that Austen had already done the structural work. She named the hero Mark Darcy. Four years later the films cast Colin Firth, the serial's Darcy, in the part, which is the borrowing acknowledged on screen.