Bridgerton (2020) The question we kept asking ourselves after plowing through this Netlix 8 episode series.......would anyone pay this much attention to 'Bridgerton' if we weren't all stuck in our houses, looking for the next hot thing to binge watch?
When you get right down to it, is anything as ridiculous, overstuffed and over heated as 'Bridgerton' worth discussing in detail?
We promise not to do that, lest anybody make the mistake of thinking we took this show seriously......
Let's start first with the whole alternate universe hoo-haa......the show daringly re-imagines 19th century England as racially diverse......with black Brits in every strata of of this very structured society, from lowly servants, to lofty nobles.....right up.to the Queen of England herself.
This is no ordinary alternate universe we're talking about......behold history as rewritten by the powerhouse writer-producer Shonda Rhimes. This isn't just a mere Shondaland production, it's a richly realized Shonda-Verse.
We're more than willing to buy into that as a purely never-neverland fantasy, but the show feels compelled to come up with its own far-fetched reason for this amazing turn of events......claiming that mad King George's wedding to the black Queen Charlotte instantly upended and revolutionized the country overnight.......
Seriously? The Queen waving a wand and singing "Bippity Bobbity Boo" would have been a far more believable explanation for the ShondaVerse than a mere royal wedding.....
And now on to the show itself, which primarily deals with the turbulent and tumescent romance between a cutie-pie uppercrust sweetheart and her dashing, dangerous Broody McMoody Duke of Something-Or-Other.....
There's also a teeming supporting cast of cousins, brothers, sisters, nobles, knaves, schemers, dreamers, bitches, bastards, yada, yada, yada.........and they've all got little stories going on of their own.......(only the immediate threat of automatic weapons pointed at us would make us think about these characters or their various problems any further.).
The byplay between these people is as soporific and mind numbing as anything you'd hear in one of those Merchant-Ivory Mirimax snoozers........and we did find ourselves fighting sleep for long stretches of these indifferently paced episodes.
Ah, but the "Bridgerton" folk have an ace card to play.......
Sex!
Yes, boys and girls, this isn't your grandmother's Mirimax movie......the show is liberally sprinkled with plenty 'o heavin', heavy breathi' humping. Despite the myriad soap-opera-ish complications keeping them apart, Sweet Little Noble Girl and Broody McMoody do the horizontal mambo at every opportunity.....
Meanwhile the rest of the cast lives in breathless anticipation and dreaded fear at the hot gossip tabloid put out the mysterious, anonymous 'Mrs. Whistledown'.......(rousingly voiced by Julie Andrews as an off-screen narration). Mrs. W. holds the Empire in her grip like Burt Lancaster's fearsome J. J. Hunseker from "Sweet Smell Of Success".
The only way to enjoy this show to the fullest is to laugh at it. We recommend watching it for some giggles, but only if you've got smirk on your face and Cheetos dust on your fingertips.
By all means, take it in for the Shonda-Verse, the extravagant sets and costumes and the hubba-hubba sex. And to no one's surprise, they're threatening a second season........
But we'll cross that Bridgerton when we get to it.....2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)
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