In 1996, Helen Fielding published a novel based on a series of columns she wrote for two British newspapers. It featured a fictional London 30-something who worked in publishing and had a great love of cigarettes and alcohol. Two years later, Bridget Jones’s Diary would arrive in the United States; as in the U.K., it became a smash hit and in 2001 it was adapted as a very popular film, cowritten by Fielding and starring Renée Zellweger. A movie version of Fielding’s sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, followed three years later, and a third film, Bridget Jones’s Baby, came out in 2016; Fielding published Bridget Jones’s Baby: The Diaries shortly thereafter. Now, the last remaining novel in the series in getting a small-screen treatment: Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy premieres on Peacock on Feb. 13.

Through all four novels, readers have enjoyed Bridget’s sharp, funny journal entries, which addressed her romantic troubles, her social awkwardness, her self-esteem issues, her love-hate relationship with food, and her preoccupation with ill-fated self-improvement schemes at great length. At the end of The Edge of Reason, Bridget was engaged to her nice-guy boyfriend, Mark Darcy, a human-rights lawyer; in Mad About the Boy, set some years later, it’s revealed that Bridget and Mark did, in fact, marry, and were raising two young children. It’s also revealed Mark was killed by a landmine while in the Sudan—an uncharacteristically dark turn of events in the Bridget Jones universe, where a bad day might involve showing up to a party in a “bunny girl” outfit, only to discover it’s not a costume party.

The novel, however, doesn’t exactly dwell on Mark’s death. The story starts five years after the tragedy, conveniently skipping over the hardest part of Bridget’s grief process; she’s still a bit sad at times, of course, but she’s ready to start dating again, spurred on by her longtime friends and drinking companions. Thus, 51-year-old Bridget ends up dating a 29-year-old, improbably named Roxby “Roxster” McDuff, whom she meets on Twitter; he’s overly fond of fart jokes but awfully attractive, good in bed, and pleasant to be around. Nonetheless, Bridget is conflicted, as well as wracked by self-doubt—in true Bridget Jones fashion.

After all, readers (and viewers) don’t want a well-adjusted Bridget; they want her worrying constantly—counting calories obsessively, scouring books such as Dating, Fornication, and Romance: Who Knew There Were Rules? for relationship advice, and always feeling like she doesn’t quite measure up to men’s expectations. Scene by scene, Bridget is funny and relatable; a great many readers saw, and still see, themselves in her. Still, it’s hard not to think that she’d be a lot happier if she’d just see a therapist. That can’t ever happen, of course—it goes against the brand. (For those wondering what might have been, there’s always Candice Carty-Williams’ novel Queenie, which uses the Bridget Jones template to tell a very different story.)

The film version of Mad About the Boy, directed by To Leslie’s Michael Morris, follows the book’s plot in broad strokes but changes many minor details. Gone are the fart jokes, for example, and a scene in which Bridget must deals with her children becoming extravagantly ill (“Was difficult situation, undeniably: everyone poo- and sick-smeared, alarmed and retching”); a running gag about a revolting lice outbreak is also not-so-mysteriously absent.

Here, Bridget meets Roxster (played amiably by One Day’s Leo Woodall) in a park, instead of on Twitter, and now she’s a TV producer, not a screenwriter. Still, she’s the same old Bridget, and Zellweger’s performance is pitch-perfect—anxious and self-loathing but quite charming. So, too, is Hugh Grant as her old flame and ex-boss, Daniel Cleaver, a former bad boy who’s mellowed quite a bit; he even occasionally babysits Bridget’s kids. Chiwetel Ejiofor, as Scott Wallaker, her son’s somewhat boring but goodhearted teacher, is also quite good; the film would have benefited from more scenes with him. In any case, fans of the book and the previous films won’t be disappointed, as it delivers the full Bridget Jones experience, embarrassing moments and all, if in a slightly lower key; it’s less a wacky rom-com than it is comfort viewing for ex-singletons. Suffice it to say that, in the end, Bridget ends up with the man of her dreams (again), thus freeing her from her many, many anxieties—at least for now.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.