With the popularity of the two Bridgerton series, it’s no surprise that people have been loving the new instalment of the Bridgerton universe. The highly anticipated show, released on Netflix on May 4, logged nearly 150 million viewing hours in its first week and is currently in the top spot on the Top 10 TV shows on the streaming service.
With a synopsis of ‘Young Queen Charlotte's marriage to King George of England sparks an epic love story and transforms high society in this "Bridgerton" universe prequel’ Netflix has given Bridgerton fans the background story fans have been wanting for nearly two years. If you haven’t watched the show yet, or are yet to finish the six episodes, I would stop reading now as this will include some plot spoilers.
Set in Great Britain during the Regency Era, we follow the story of a young Charlotte Macklenburg-Strelitz as she leaves her home country to become Queen of England and all the title involves. The show provides parallels between the life of the King and Queen when they first met and the time of the original Bridgerton series.
Having watched the two previous seasons of the show and absolutely loving them, I was always going to want to watch this show to see what it had to offer and it really didn’t disappoint.
As the title suggests the main storyline of the show followed the Queen through her marriage to the King. During the original series of Bridgerton, we don’t really see the King and only hear the Queen refer to him a few times but in Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, we find out why he is so absent.
Charlotte did not get to meet her husband-to-be until their wedding, something that seemed strange to the audience and Charlotte herself. But as you make your way through the episodes you see why. The King, who prefers his solitude and studying the stars, appears to struggle with his mental health and the pressure of being King is the sole catalyst for his affliction.
Throughout the six-episode series, we watch as Charlotte tries to get close to her husband who does everything he can to get away from her - his way of protecting her from his ‘craziness’. By the halfway point of the series old problems have been solved and new ones arise, but the one thing that doesn’t change is Charlotte’s determination to support her increasingly sick husband.
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While Charlotte and the King are the main characters and storyline, we do get to see other characters from the original series given a little bit of limelight too. From learning how Lady Danbury became a widow to Violet Bridgerton as a child we get a glimpse of the world that came before the time of Daphne and Anthony.
One storyline that caught the hearts of many viewers was the secret love story of Brimsley and Reynolds, the right-hand men for the Queen and the King. Viewers are given small snippets of the pair’s attraction to each other but viewers never know how far their romance went.
A beautiful but sad scene at the end of the final episode shows the pair dancing at the King and Queen’s ball before cutting to a shot of poor Brimsley dancing on his own. Viewers never found out what happened to Reyonlds but one can only assume he died many years ago.
While I’m not surprised, I really enjoyed Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. It provided viewers with a great amount of backstory that explains the King’s absence and the way the Queen is in the original series. The parallels throughout really show how the characters have grown and what they have learnt throughout the years, but also what they may have lost.
I did feel like the episodes were a bit too long, like they’d tried to pack everything into as fewer episodes as possible, which made it a little hard to watch at times and lost my attention at points. I didn’t particularly like the storyline between Lady Danbury and Violet’s father, Lord Ledger, it felt like a massive betrayal between friends.
And eagle-eyes fans were also quick to point out online that there was a major factual error in the decor. They pointed out that some of the portraits hung upon the wall were inaccurate and didn’t add up to the time period.
Posting a screenshot, Dr Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell wrote: "These two are adorable, but the portraits in #QueenCharlotte are KILLING me. NONE of those people were even *born* in 1761.
"That is QUEEN VICTORIA. Specifically, her coronation portrait by Sir George Hayter. Her coronation was in 1838, 20 years after Charlotte DIED.
"And that's her husband, Prince Albert, painted in the robes of the Order of the Garter by Frank Xaver Winterhalter in 1843."
Overall, I found the series very enjoyable to watch, there was the right balance of tension and sexual attraction between the lead characters without either being too overbearing. I would 100% recommend this.
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