If the typical Regency drama is marked by subtlety, discretion, and the subordination of sexuality to social mores, the new Netflix series Bridgerton represents a significant departure from the norm. Smoldering glances are on its bill of fare, yes, but so are unclothed bodies, groping, and enough simulated thrusting to satisfy even the most jaded of peeping Toms. Call it Jane Austen for the age of Pornhub.
An adaptation of novels by historical romance author Julia Quinn, Bridgerton takes as its subject the trials and tribulations of two upper-class London families. The title clan, led by the Dowager Lady Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell), is a mostly happy band whose sons and daughters must navigate the social season under the watchful eye of Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel). The Featheringtons, strapped with gambling debts and a scandal-ridden visiting in-law, are comparatively disadvantaged but equally determined to shine. Keeping track of the aristocracy’s comings and goings is the sharp-tongued but anonymous Lady Whistledown (the voice of Julie Andrews), composer of an unsparing gossip broadsheet. In the past, one could hope to do one’s courting without open public commentary. Given Lady Whistledown’s reach, the best one can do is attempt to provoke no interest.
Failing spectacularly in their quests for privacy are the half-dozen characters with which Netflix’s series is most concerned. For the young Viscount Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey), the dilemma of note is his relationship with a lovely but unsuitable opera singer, a liaison at odds with his inherited title and responsibilities. For Marina Thompson (Ruby Barker), the Featheringtons’ calling cousin, the business of the day is the concealment of an illicit pregnancy, a scheme that entangles several Featheringtons and a Bridgerton boy.
Most important to the show’s narrative, however, is the progress of Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor), the eldest of the family’s daughters and the season’s “incomparable” debutante. Under pressure to marry the offensive Lord Berbrooke, Daphne strikes a bargain with Simon Basset, the Duke of Hastings (Rege-Jean Page), one of the nation’s most eligible bachelors. In order to throw Lady Whistledown off their scent, the two of them “pretend to form an attachment.” As an added benefit, “every presumptuous mother in town will leave [Simon] alone, and every suitor will be looking at [Daphne].”
So central is what follows to Bridgerton’s ambitions that it is simply impossible to critique the show without revealing that Simon and Daphne’s staged alliance soon blossoms into a real one. Yet Netflix’s series is not, to its credit, a mere saga of accidental love. Buried in Simon’s past is a paternal relationship so poisonous that the duke has vowed to sire no children of his own. Determined to keep that oath despite his marriage to Daphne, Simon resorts to a bedroom strategy that is as self-denying as it is old-fashioned. (Viewers familiar with the Old Testament figure Onan will recognize the trick.)
If the resulting conjugal scenes make for overly graphic television at times, it is nevertheless the case that the chemistry between Dynevor and Page is among Bridgerton’s greatest assets. Trapped in a marriage that is largely defined by dishonesty, Dynevor’s Daphne is a picture of innocence giving way to bitter experience. A cad but not entirely a villain, Page’s Simon is a heap of contradictory motives and desires. That both actors are blessed with an innate physical magnetism is the ingredient that holds the recipe together. So intractable are the couple’s problems that audiences would likely throw up their hands were not the connection between the pair so obvious, poignant, and real.
Where Bridgerton is less successful is in its attempt to wring equal significance from its many subplots. In the case of Miss Thompson’s unwanted pregnancy, the issue is repetition as much as anything: One struggles to recall a period drama that didn’t produce an illegitimate child. Elsewhere, as in the case of Baron Featherington’s gambling storyline, the action is so disconnected from the rest of the series that one wonders why it was included at all. Perhaps the gravest misstep of this kind is in the drama surrounding the identity of Lady Whistledown. A mystery that exists solely to give a pair of secondary characters something to talk about, the Whistledown narrative concludes with what is surely the least interesting revelation in recent television history. It was her all along, you say? Most viewers will struggle to care.
Similar to Hulu’s The Great and Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield, Bridgerton follows a contemporary trend of eschewing all-white casting in favor of anachronistic colorblindness. (The actors who play Queen Charlotte and the Duke of Hastings are black.) Though much can be said in favor of this decision, a pesky side effect is its impact on a production’s tone, which can easily become otherworldly or trite as historical accuracy slides away. Whether our ever-jealous clerics of racial grievance will allow the habit to continue is, of course, a separate question. Given a recent complaint in the New York Times that it is “only [Bridgerton’s black characters] who speak about race,” one can imagine that this gimmick, too, might eventually be declared a form of oppression.
In the meantime, let us hope that Bridgerton’s audiences can enjoy it for what it is: a flawed but entertaining take on marriage, duty, and the rigors to which the moneyed young were once subjected. It isn’t Pride and Prejudice, but, then again, very few things are.
Graham Hillard teaches English and creative writing at Trevecca Nazarene University.
