#98 The Bloodline Will Continue
08/05/23 16:34
Long live Queen Charlotte, who obligingly sashayed on screen to satisfy my Bridgerton urges. As loony King George says to his physician: ‘strap me back in.’
Now, I’m a huge Bridgerton fan, but must admit I didn’t enjoy the last series quite as much. Maybe because there was less sex? That makes me sound like a massive perve, but all that jolly rogering was what made it fun and not one of those po-faced period dramas where everyone mumbles and everything’s shot in the dark. I know past-people had sores and rotten teeth but sometimes I don’t want to see it. What Bridgerton does so beautifully is say ‘fuck it’ to history, only showing you the pretty, enticing parts. If Shonda Rhimes tackled World War Two then there wouldn’t be any bombs, just people humping in air raid shelters and having glamorous knees-ups at the Ritz. Less rose-tinted, more totally-obscured-by-artfully-arranged-flora.
And that’s what Queen Shonda has done with her new series, with knobs on. It’s the pick ‘n’ mix of period drama; a bit of this, a bit of that and bollocks to the rest. And brava to her for that. Who wants authentic aniseed balls amidst your tasty dolly mixtures and your hard foam bananas? So, Mad King George is also fit AF, and when he marries a German Duke’s daughter, who is Black, George’s formidable mother Princess Augusta diversifies the ton by elevating people of colour to prominent positions in society. No, I didn’t remember that happening either, and a quick peek at Wikipedia confirms it didn’t. But, like, cool if it did, right? I mean, I don’t know how to square the idea with slavery, which wasn’t abolished in the British Empire until 1807, but maybe in this carefree parallel universe it didn’t exist. Or something – oooh, look, there’s a lovely flower!
The idea of The Great Experiment, as it’s known, is introduced in the original Bridgerton series, but not immediately, so you have a while just enjoying the colour-blind casting, before you’re thrown this explanatory curveball. I was never really convinced; there are too many ‘buts’, but then there are the butts, and I guess they’re supposed to distract you from the logistics of near-instant desegregation.
Anyway, after a bit more ton-tweaking by Charlotte, equality is achieved, and she can concentrate on quarrelling and copulating with her husband the King. There are two timelines in this series: in the ‘present-day’, we see Bridgerton’s older Queen Charlotte attempting to marry off her many grown-up children, and in the past, we follow her young love story with George before his descent into madness. I really like the guy playing George – NO, you filthy animals, he’s actually very, er, talented. It’s a nice blend of sexy charm, big arms and occasional ominous tics. He gets his butt out a lot.
The casting is spot on – India Amarteifio and Arséma Thomas, playing young Charlotte and young Lady Danbury, are both great, nailing the manners and mannerisms of their older counterpart. In one excellent scene, Agatha explains the sexual act to a naïve Charlotte with the aid of charcoal illustrations. Many, many explicit sketches, depicting various positions. That’s what I’d do if I needed to explain banging to the Queen, and YouTube wasn’t available. I’d do drawings! Of him taking her up the arse! Tremendous.
I also enjoyed how the King and Queen’s respective secretaries go hard at it whenever their employers are together. One minute they’re impassive bystanders as Charlotte and George have a barney in the Observatory, the next they’ve giving each other frantic hand jobs in an anteroom. FUN. The whole thing has a playful, tongue-in-cheek (oo-er) quality, a show that doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is just as well, because it ain’t no history lesson, nor does it claim to be. I don’t care about that – I can get the facts from BBC Bitesize – but I do have a few narrative quibbles.
Firstly, some of the ‘past’ action is narrated by Lady Whistledown, which doesn’t make sense. We know her secret identity because it was revealed in Bridgerton, and that particular lady wouldn’t have been born in the earlier timeline of Queen Charlotte. So how in Venus’s transit is she commenting on the action? To further complicate matters, Lady W is voiced by Julie Andrews, who probably was around at the time. Secondly, episode four is pretty much superfluous, going over events from previous episodes in a way that is unnecessary and a bit boring – I don’t know why they bothered, maybe it was to save money re-using locations and costumes.
But, you know, the pretty flowers, and the butts. Those costumes, which are so pleasingly preposterous. The sense that it’s all silly and doesn’t matter, when in real life, hundreds of years later, we’re watching the same ridiculous pomp and pageantry play out before the masses, many of whom still can’t afford to buy bread, and don’t enjoy any kind of equality. The true Great Experiment, millennia-old, which decreed that a supreme being, whether mad or bad, was born to rule us all. We can relish the joyful absurdity of this series, to distract ourselves from the grimmer version of the reality, Charles’ pudgy fingers reaching for the Sovereign’s Orb as his subjects queue up at food banks. Shall I just hand myself in to the Met Police now?
However, there’s one piece of historical truth that Queen Charlotte does bring you – it was her who introduced the Christmas tree to Britain, not Prince Albert. So suck on that.
Now, I’m a huge Bridgerton fan, but must admit I didn’t enjoy the last series quite as much. Maybe because there was less sex? That makes me sound like a massive perve, but all that jolly rogering was what made it fun and not one of those po-faced period dramas where everyone mumbles and everything’s shot in the dark. I know past-people had sores and rotten teeth but sometimes I don’t want to see it. What Bridgerton does so beautifully is say ‘fuck it’ to history, only showing you the pretty, enticing parts. If Shonda Rhimes tackled World War Two then there wouldn’t be any bombs, just people humping in air raid shelters and having glamorous knees-ups at the Ritz. Less rose-tinted, more totally-obscured-by-artfully-arranged-flora.
And that’s what Queen Shonda has done with her new series, with knobs on. It’s the pick ‘n’ mix of period drama; a bit of this, a bit of that and bollocks to the rest. And brava to her for that. Who wants authentic aniseed balls amidst your tasty dolly mixtures and your hard foam bananas? So, Mad King George is also fit AF, and when he marries a German Duke’s daughter, who is Black, George’s formidable mother Princess Augusta diversifies the ton by elevating people of colour to prominent positions in society. No, I didn’t remember that happening either, and a quick peek at Wikipedia confirms it didn’t. But, like, cool if it did, right? I mean, I don’t know how to square the idea with slavery, which wasn’t abolished in the British Empire until 1807, but maybe in this carefree parallel universe it didn’t exist. Or something – oooh, look, there’s a lovely flower!
The idea of The Great Experiment, as it’s known, is introduced in the original Bridgerton series, but not immediately, so you have a while just enjoying the colour-blind casting, before you’re thrown this explanatory curveball. I was never really convinced; there are too many ‘buts’, but then there are the butts, and I guess they’re supposed to distract you from the logistics of near-instant desegregation.
Anyway, after a bit more ton-tweaking by Charlotte, equality is achieved, and she can concentrate on quarrelling and copulating with her husband the King. There are two timelines in this series: in the ‘present-day’, we see Bridgerton’s older Queen Charlotte attempting to marry off her many grown-up children, and in the past, we follow her young love story with George before his descent into madness. I really like the guy playing George – NO, you filthy animals, he’s actually very, er, talented. It’s a nice blend of sexy charm, big arms and occasional ominous tics. He gets his butt out a lot.
The casting is spot on – India Amarteifio and Arséma Thomas, playing young Charlotte and young Lady Danbury, are both great, nailing the manners and mannerisms of their older counterpart. In one excellent scene, Agatha explains the sexual act to a naïve Charlotte with the aid of charcoal illustrations. Many, many explicit sketches, depicting various positions. That’s what I’d do if I needed to explain banging to the Queen, and YouTube wasn’t available. I’d do drawings! Of him taking her up the arse! Tremendous.
I also enjoyed how the King and Queen’s respective secretaries go hard at it whenever their employers are together. One minute they’re impassive bystanders as Charlotte and George have a barney in the Observatory, the next they’ve giving each other frantic hand jobs in an anteroom. FUN. The whole thing has a playful, tongue-in-cheek (oo-er) quality, a show that doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is just as well, because it ain’t no history lesson, nor does it claim to be. I don’t care about that – I can get the facts from BBC Bitesize – but I do have a few narrative quibbles.
Firstly, some of the ‘past’ action is narrated by Lady Whistledown, which doesn’t make sense. We know her secret identity because it was revealed in Bridgerton, and that particular lady wouldn’t have been born in the earlier timeline of Queen Charlotte. So how in Venus’s transit is she commenting on the action? To further complicate matters, Lady W is voiced by Julie Andrews, who probably was around at the time. Secondly, episode four is pretty much superfluous, going over events from previous episodes in a way that is unnecessary and a bit boring – I don’t know why they bothered, maybe it was to save money re-using locations and costumes.
But, you know, the pretty flowers, and the butts. Those costumes, which are so pleasingly preposterous. The sense that it’s all silly and doesn’t matter, when in real life, hundreds of years later, we’re watching the same ridiculous pomp and pageantry play out before the masses, many of whom still can’t afford to buy bread, and don’t enjoy any kind of equality. The true Great Experiment, millennia-old, which decreed that a supreme being, whether mad or bad, was born to rule us all. We can relish the joyful absurdity of this series, to distract ourselves from the grimmer version of the reality, Charles’ pudgy fingers reaching for the Sovereign’s Orb as his subjects queue up at food banks. Shall I just hand myself in to the Met Police now?
However, there’s one piece of historical truth that Queen Charlotte does bring you – it was her who introduced the Christmas tree to Britain, not Prince Albert. So suck on that.
- Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story – 6 episodes, Netflix
