Bridgerton season 3 is streaming now and the series has created quite the buzz online for all the right reasons. When season 1 came out, we went in expecting a classic period drama with a grand romance and whole lot of old fashioned villainy. However, it is safe to say that Bridgerton challenged the tenets of period drama and went off-trail in some questionable yet impressive ways. A gossip girl of the regency era works under the wraps in the series who narrates the story unlike anyone could have done it. She publishes a tabloid that narrates the hottest dramas of the season – where eligible young girls are introduced to society for the Queen’s approval and young men’s pursuit. Who ends up finding love and who ends up making an appearance yet again the next season is the society’s biggest element for gossip.
The Bridgerton siblings – truly remarkable kind of species – find their way to love through the first two seasons (the eldest two, atleast). The next ones are indulged in their own worlds that the outside world does not approve of. Of course, a number of traditional elements are checked in Bridgerton to ensure that the series is indeed a period piece but the clever infusion of modern day ideals and aesthetics takes things up a notch and sets the show apart.
Women rule the Bridgerton world, as was made clear in the spinoff that came after season two before season three, titled ‘Queen Charlotte’. The Queen’s story was completely worth the money, in fact even better than the Bridgerton series themselves which did waiver a little from the core storyline with sometimes too much sex and sometimes too much sappy dialogue (season 1 especially). Queen Charlotte, however, was right on the money. The older characters were given an impressive back-story that added so much weight to their presence in the Bridgerton series. The Queen and Lady Danbury’s friendship is one for the history books, while the touch upon the king’s mental condition and its treatment is ahead of its time for a period piece. (Like I said, a modernistic viewpoint.) Also a heartwarming sub-plot is the queen’s cordial yet hearty relationship with her right hand man, Brimsley, who happens to be gay, is a beautiful value-addition.
Bridgerton does well to stay at pace with the prequel. The costumes are extravagant but there’s an element of quirk to it. The music takes us by surprise in the first season and then keeps us wondering what the next one’s going to be in the next seasons. The aesthetics of the castles, manors, ballrooms and gardens are simply on point.
Even amidst all that goes on at all times in Bridgerton, what stands out the most is the story itself. The writers have not surrendered their stronghold to cinematographers, costume designers, set designers to actors – who have done incredibly well as individual units. The story branches out into multiple sub-plots, each one as engaging as another, ensuring that even though the central element of the series is the Bridgerton family, they are perceived as part of a high functioning regency society.
Bridgerton can well be called a masterpiece of a period series. The makers themselves must live in a bubble to be able to create something so effortlessly beautiful and appealing. They have pin-pointed their target audience and catered to them unequivocally and unapologetically. To summarize in a word, Bridgerton is simply ‘beautiful’ and that’s why everyone must experience it.
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