I was promised hot. I was promised steamy. Instead, I got the third season of Bridgerton, a tedious bonkers story line with confused empire lines, blackmail, and very long sex scenes.
I don’t watch much TV but when it comes to Bridgerton resistance is futile. If you want some fun and escapism, I thought I could do worse. There is no swearing and nothing is blown up so these days it’s a good bet if you just want some fantasy.
I watched the first season and enjoyed it. I thought the chemistry between Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) and the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page) was perfect thank you very much. I also enjoyed the second season and the love-hate romance between Viscount Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) and Miss Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley).
The race-blind casting did not bother me, as the series is based on books by Julia Quinn that are written very recently. I do object when they do this nonsense diversity casting with literary classics such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility or Jane Eyre. When they start casting someone from Uzbekistan as John Thornton the Milton manufacturer in North and South that’s when I get angry. But the Bridgerton books are new and ultimately fluffy escapism, so I don’t really care what they do to it.
This third season starring Luke Newton as Colin Bridgerton and Nicola Coughlan as Penelope Featherington is just bonkers. I cannot really think of a better word other than bonkers- the entire storyline makes no sense. Spoilers follow, so if you’re a hardcore fan who still hasn’t watched, perhaps skip the next few paragraphs.
Who cares that Penelope Featherington is Lady Whistledown, who writes a gossip column/pamphlet? It’s a Regency version of the National Enquirer – she’s hardly unveiling the identity of Jack the Ripper. Repeatedly there are concocted pressure points. Penelope must reveal to Colin that she is Lady Whistledown “by midnight” according to Colin’s sister, and Penelope’s former best friend Eloise, or she will do it herself. Why so soon? Why midnight? What’s the rush? Who even cares? Oh, there goes Penelope fainting just before midnight.
These mad dramatic devices are irritating. What is also annoying are the costume designs. I could just about live with these ultra-modern materials with vague Regency empire lines in the first and second seasons, but now the costumes are out of control.
It’s not just that all the sparkles and sequence on the acrylic dresses did not exist at the time – the wealthy would wear silk or muslin, the less wealthy perhaps a cotton floral print. It is that the over-the-top costumes and wigs distract from what in places are good actors attempting to act in serious scenes.
But what is most irritating, what I found most unbelievable are the sex scenes.
A recap. Penelope has spent the last two seasons, most of her coming of age, longing from afar for Colin Bridgerton. She has been absolutely head-over-heels in love with him for years.
Colin has her firmly in the friend’s zone and after returning from his Grand Tour (after doing what gentlemen his age did on the Grand Tour) and out of the kindness of his heart offers to teach Penelope some charm to help her bag a husband. Of course, Colin ends up falling for Penelope, scuppers a forthcoming proposal and promptly moves her out of friend’s zone and into the fumble in a carriage zone.
An engagement instantly follows. Hurray! Penelope has her man.
What follows is the ludicrous story line of will Colin and the Queen find out that she is in fact Lady Whistledown, purveyor of gossip. I still don’t know why they should care, or why we should care, or why we should care that they should care, but so far it has totted up at least 45 million views, so clearly a lot of people do care. Who am I to judge? It’s a business model that’s for sure.
Other things that I find odd are that despite Penelope now being engaged to the love of her life, she spends much of the remaining season looking gloomy, sad, gasping for air or indeed fainting. Even on the day before their wedding day, the happy couple are far from happy.
When they are not being glum though, Colin and Penelope spend some time with each other. We are also to believe that even though the wedding is in about two weeks they just couldn’t possibly wait to fully consummate their relationship. Colin brings Penelope to what will be the new gaffe (Ta-Da- here is your beautiful new home, a Cinderella story if ever there was one) where things get “steamy.” Did I say steamy? I meant tiresome.
Honestly, if this is how the youth carry on in the bedroom these days no wonder so many are declaring themselves asexual. Penelope promptly dispenses with her clothing, but as she stands in front of the mirror, she doesn’t look any happier now than she did when she was firmly parked in the friend’s zone.
Is this really what the folks of Netflix believe was how couples rolled in Regency times? Even the maidens. Why does Penelope keep asking Colin – the love of her life- for so much direction? Surely if you desired someone from afar for so long and then you finally have him where you want him, direction is not needed. When two twenty somethings get together usually lust kicks in. Just what is taking so long? If this is what they call hot and steamy then we have a problem. Some reviewers called it tender; I thought it tedious. And long. Who has time for this kind of thing?
This is what the moderns get so wrong about the pre-sexual revolution past, when everyone was allegedly ‘sexually repressed.’ The boomers really do believe sex was invented in 1963. Nope. The youth of yester-year, yes even the blushing virgins who took the water in Bath, would not have spent their wedding night asking what goes where. They knew exactly what happened, they probably would have put it all into practice given half a chance, but the only difference was, they didn’t get the chance. They weren’t sexually repressed – they just had limits imposed upon them by their elders.
The people way back were not naïve about the sex drive – that’s us. The Regency crowd were perfectly aware of just how strong sexual attraction is and how men and women are meant for one another. That is why the parents took such an active interest in who they meet. That is why a young couple always had a chaperone and were never left alone! That’s the whole point.
It’s us, the moderns who believe it’s just a cracking idea to drop your 18-year-old daughter to an alcohol fuelled frat party. What could possibly go wrong? Or the morons you find in places such as the UK Ministry of Defence who believe packing off the ladies in a submarine choc-a-bloc full of horny sailors for months on end will be plain sailing. I just don’t have time for this kind of foolishness.
This misunderstanding is what causes the unrealistic sex scenes. At one point I thought Colin was going to whip out some sort of consent contract drawn up from the Department of Women, Queer, Transexual and Vegan studies and ask poor Penelope to sign on the dotted line. Dear God, I thought, make it stop.
If you think this is how Elizabeth Bennet would have carried on with Mr Darcy on her wedding night in Pemberly then I suggest you re-read your copy of Pride and Prejudice. Perhaps Marianne and Colonel Brandon spent their first night like this but that would have been due to the huge (and if you ask me inappropriate) age difference of 20 years.
Anyway, if like me, you grew up on Fatal Attraction then this was one big snore fest. I’m not going to be ignored, said Alex – and she wasn’t. If poor Penelope carries on like this, she’ll be ignored for the rest of her life.
The end seems to wrap itself up nicely. Someone gets packed off the country, the Queen finds out the identity of the editor of the National Enquirer and some babies are born. Finally, I can re-read my copy of North and South.
Overall, I find it fascinating that in an era with pornography lurking behind every phone the millennials just cannot get enough of the Regency era courtship rules, empire line dresses, and blushing clueless maidens. The generation who grew up with no rules when it comes to relations between men and women, when they cannot even tell you what a man or woman is, just cannot get enough of the past when the roles for men and women were crystal clear and separate, a time that if you were caught in the library with a young man, boom he had to marry you. (See season 2). It was either that or risk your life in a duel. (See season 1.)
Perhaps the millennials crave these rules – especially the women. Hell, returning to a past when we had ladies only bathrooms would be a start. All these slow burning romances are certainly more attractive than internet dating where they must suffer uninvited snaps of some guy’s swimsuit area, only without the swimsuit. It’s the mystery the millennials seek. Which is understandable. If only they could look a bit happier about it.