Bridgerton, the new period romance from
Greyâs Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes, mixes all the highly stylized drama of Grace Mercy West Hospital with the pomp and powdered wigs of Regency Era England, as eight siblings duke it out for love, status, and, well, dukes. But when a controlling older brother comes between young beauty Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dyneover) and a superior suitor, causing her to fall out of favor with the queen and one particularly biting gossip columnist, she hatches a plan to redeem herself in the eyes of society. She strikes a deal with Duke Simon Bassett, a decided bachelor with a playboy reputation, to pretend to be madly in love. She hopes the handsome facade will spark jealousy in prospective husbands; he hopes it will curb the pressure to marry from his aunt, Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh).
Think a Jane Austen mash-up with
Gossip Girl given the Shondaland treatment.
“My initial thoughts about the script was that it was really nice to see a story with lots of women and the writing was really atmospheric.
Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte in episode 2 of Netflix series Bridgerton
- Credit: LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIX
“It’s a world that I love and to see that play out through female eyes, through female energy, was really something quite exciting and intriguing.”
While
Bridgerton is a fictional world, Queen Charlotte was a real person.
However, the Queen Charlotte Golda plays is a creation of showrunner Chris Van Dusen’s making, because she’s not actually in the best-selling books.
My dears, what do you think? In the lavishly picturesque world of Regency-era England here in
Bridgerton, the new social season is about to begin in earnest. As I, Lady Whistledown, will faithfully be depicting in my popular scandal sheet, all of London’s eligible young lovelies are about to be presented to the court to hopefully extract the favor of the queen before being set forth to swim among a sea of hopeful suitors. Of course, the diamond of this year’s season is the porcelain-skinned and auburn-haired Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor), the first of her family’s four daughters to come forward and whose romantic exploits will undoubtedly take up much of my reports this season. (Also, I hear the queen’s husband is, shall we say, under considerable strain as of late, so perturbed is he after the loss of the colonies several seasons ago.)
By Julia Jacobs
Dec. 18, 2020
… The prolific showrunner [Shonda Rhimes] does not consider herself an avid romance reader, but she devoured Julia Quinn’s “Bridgerton” series about the moneyed marriage market of 19th century England, and like the fan, she did not understand why more books of that genre have not been adapted onto the screen, while Jane Austen novels have been wrung dry.
Because Jane Austen novels are
better than romance novels?
The show is a career landmark for Rhimes, the first series in her exclusive, nine-figure deal with Netflix after a string of hits for ABC made her one of TV’s most successful showrunners. Rhimes created “Grey’s Anatomy,”
The hills are alive with
“The Sound of Music.” Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer star in this beloved 1965 film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. 7 p.m. ABC
Set a spell, take your shoes off:
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They have miles to go before they sleep in the TV movie
“Cross Country Christmas.” With Rachael Leigh Cook. 8 p.m. Hallmark Channel
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“The 22nd Annual A Home for the Holidays.”Gayle King hosts. 9 p.m. CBS