BOOKS BY TAD CARPENTER TV
The whole point of the Bridgerton universe is that this is fairy-tale fun for adults, free from all the achingly modern concerns now forced into every damn TV drama. So why now try to have the best of two entirely incompatible worlds? It’s a formula that’s proved highly successful. The whole point of the Bridgerton universe is that this is fairy-tale fun for adults, couched oh-so-loosely in a real historical period, and certainly free from all the achingly modern concerns now forced into every damn TV drama. Because, dare I say it, do we really care? This is where the show truly starts to come off the rails. But, spoiler alert, brave Charlotte loves him despite it! He’s patently mad and wants to spare his new wife from a life tied to his seemingly incurable illness. Later we learn the truth of hapless George’s mental health struggle. What’s wrong with him, Charlotte wonders? Does he just not fancy her? Is he impotent? Is he diseased? Is he too busy playing which that giant telescope in his observatory? And is the telescope actually a euphemism? Terribly alone in a castle stuffed to the brim with servants like Princess Diana without even a landline for company. But he isn’t, slinking off instead to his private residence on their wedding night.Ĭharlotte feels trapped. The next, she’s staring dizzily into George’s eyes and kissing him at the altar like it’s her first McDonald’s following a burger famine.īut then it’s his turn to go cold. One moment, Charlotte’s hoisting up her wedding dress and clambering over the wisteria to escape the imminent ceremony. The problem is, though, it’s often a tad too unbelievable – even in the make-believe world of Bridgerton. We also get a welcome peak into the young lives of fan-favorite characters: Ladies Agatha Danbury and Violet Bridgerton (played by Adjoa Andoh, left, and Ruth Gemmell, right, pictured with Golda Rosheuvel). And, soon enough, it’s sex in the dining room, sex in the bath, steamy sex dreams, extra-marital affairs, quickies in the servants’ quarters, bare bums in the rose garden. Quite right! Marrying the Spare, for one.īut, of course, this sexless petulance can’t last long. ‘There are worse fates than marrying the King of England,’ snaps brother Adolphus (Tunji Kasim). ‘How joyful it is to be a lady,’ she sarcastically whines from her London-bound carriage. It’s all terribly worthy and ahead of its time.Īnd then there’s 18th-Century feminist forebear Charlotte, who’d rather not have her future decided for her, thank you very much. He insists he’s ‘Just George… Farmer George’, that he doesn’t care for pomp and pageantry, and that instead he’s interested in the sciences and developing cheap solutions to large-scale crop production. That is, alone, topless and covered in mud, with a horse-drawn plough out on his estate. Hunky George resents his Kingly duty to nation and Empire, hopelessly yearning instead to live out his days hoeing the land. Really, their union is a trade deal between the two nations – orchestrated by Charlotte’s elder brother and George’s fearsome mother – that neither bride nor groom wants any part in. Within minutes, we’ve met the then 17-year-old Princess Charlotte (India Ria Amarteifio), who hails from an obscure German principality, and learned that she is to marry Britain’s strapping King George (Corey Mylchreest). (Interestingly, Queen Charlotte is entirely Rhimes’s brainchild, while the main show adapts author Julia Quinn’s novel series).Ĭertainly, it has a Netflix-sized mega-budget – and there’s no time wasted. A veritable blur of bodices, brocades, buttocks and bosom.Ĭlearly, then, producer-extraordinaire and show-writer Shonda Rhimes heeded the criticism of the second Bridgerton season, which some fans derided as boring and relatively prudish compared to the sex-mad first series. But really the whole thing’s just a grand-old excuse for some not-so-soft porn – all set in the gloriously over-wrought Bridgerton fantasy land.
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