Bridgerton
When season one of Bridgerton dropped on Christmas I was in the middle of specially curated holiday viewing, mainly classic episodes of The Vicar of Dibley and Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas. And with how viewing has become very much about the binge because I wasn't in on that initial weekend I felt like I'd missed the Bridgerton boat. This of course gave me time to read the books, which had been my plan all along, though not necessarily six months after the show had first aired. This also means that I was slightly more pedantic about the adaptation than I might otherwise have been. Because this isn't how we've seen Regency England before. This is Austenland meets the technicolor fantasia of Mary Poppins on crack. Bridgerton is very colorful and fantastic and leans heavily into the fairy tale aspect of it all, you will literally be wondering if there was a single fake flower left in all of England once production commenced. Yet there are still very real issues being dealt with, and thankfully in a natural, not ham-fisted way. I can't help by still cringe how the 2017 adaptation of Howards End tried to shoehorn in diversity. Here it is natural. People of every race and color exist because that was how it was! And yes, Queen Charlotte, while slaying every scene she is in, is historically believed to be biracial. So yes, they got so many things right, and so much of the casting is spot on, that when it's off, well, it stands out all the more, hello thirty-one year old Eloise. Yeah, I'm not buying you're seventeen and neither is anyone else. Especially with a voice that sounds like you smoke three packs of cigarettes a day. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy Eloise, I will only buy her character if we actually do the eleven year time jump. Most of my other problems are very nitpicky. I don't like how they plotted the ending of the story of Daphne and Simon. Here's the thing. It worked in the book. It really really worked. Authors spend so much time figuring it out it has to be annoying when an adaption comes along and they're like, oh, we have a better idea. Because it is so rarely better. Here the lack of communication between the newlyweds strained credulity. So I'm pretending it happened like it did in the book. And as for how they handled Whistledown... firstly, I don't think she would be so easily tricked into a trap, but more importantly, I don't think Julie Andrews worked. Yes, hiring Mary Poppins herself was a coup, but Whistledown is Regency Gossip Girl, and you need to have more punch and authority. Oh, and don't get me started on the music, which often drowned out the narration! Stupid "modern" music.
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