Ridiculous and pathetic. Netflix’s diversity agenda bores me and more. This series Says once again More about the US-American society or better its ill relation with ethnicity than about the time it is supposed to portray. It’s not only ridiculous and pathetic – it’s dangerous, for it plays down the omnipresence of the most horrible racism of the so-called Western World in the 19th century. A time when blacks were exhibited to the fine European aristocracy like animals in zoos. And exploited and enslaved and hunted down in the colonies. Now, why don’t go a step further and make a “romantic” series about a black SS-officer falling in love with a transgender Jew of Chinese heritage in Nazi Germany during the late 1930s? Hey, in the end it is only romantic fiction, right? Who cares about a little bit of historical accuracy?

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I actually rather liked Queen Charlotte, although I’m not sure liked is the operative word. She’s spoiled, but then she’s royalty and used to getting her way. The scenes with King George are quite sad, as they’d actually had something of a love match. His rejection of her during his episodes of madness therefore touched her as a woman and wife, not as a queen, so were personal and heartbreaking.

I agree they lost the lighter, funnier aspects of that book in translation. I hope they get it right in the second one,

Truthfully I think they don’t care. They dumb down a lot of stuff so they probably figured calling him that was the best way for the most people to know who they are talking about.

One thing I think we can all agree on is that Bridgerton is not really interested in “accuracy”.

I thought that some, but not all, of the costumes are beautiful, although I don’t think all of them are accurate for the time period. For example, I read somewhere that leaving out the bonnets that women would have worn outside was a conscious decision, but I still missed them, and I don’t think the surplice bodice of Lady Featherington’s gowns was period appropriate either (although she probably looked better in them than in a straight bodice).

As for the casting and music, I liked them. I know that there were no black dukes in Regency England, but I didn’t care and focused only on whether I thought the actors played their roles well. There is a scene where Lady Danbury explicitly discusses race, which is rather 21st C, but for the rest of it race is not an issue, the characters are who they are. One of the best Hamlets I’ve seen was done by a black British actor, another excellent Hamlet was Benedict Cumberbatch. Although totally unlikely that a medieval Danish prince would be black, I didn’t feel that the casting of the former was done to be PC but because he could carry it off. And a famous production of “Othello” was done by the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC where all of the actors were black except for Othello, who was played by Patrick Stewart. Sometimes things are done for shock value but sometimes it’s a way to make people actually pay attention to works that they might otherwise take for granted because they think they know them. Just my opinion, of course, YMMV.

Thank gods someone else hates it!

As I noted earlier in the week, you and the two people above me seem to suffer from a lack of imagination to envision a world that’s not ivory white. I have no idea why you all seem to think Quinn is anti-PC. None of her books embrace straight-down-the-middle traditional values in the first place. But your constant example of the “PC-ness” of the series is the colorblind casting. Not everything has to be perfectly historically accurate and when your cry out about historical inaccuracy involves the race of the characters it says much about your character without saying anything more.

To be fair, it’s not like the Quinn books are historically accurate either or offer Jane Austen caliber writing.

I agree that, like the Quinn books, the Netflix series has its flaws. For me, those flaws were that there wasn’t enough to plot to stretch it out over so many hours of TV so they padded the story with some non-essential and repetitive scenes.

But overall I thought the Netflix series was fun and entertaining — a much needed, not too serious entertainment to distract us from a turbulent and difficult 2020.

I thought the casting was one of the strengths of the Netflix series. Penelope sparkled. The actor playing Simon was perfect — not only extremely handsome but somehow he delivered lines with aplomb that would have been cringe inducing from a less competent actor. Ditto for the casting of Lady Danbury — she came alive in the Netflix series whereas in the Quinn books she was more of a caricature, reciting more or less the same tired remarks in every book. The Bridgerton brothers ranged from bland to dislikeable (Anthony) for me but they would hopefully improve.

Unfortunately, there aren’t very many “historically accurate” movies or TV shows made. There aren’t many “historically accurate” romance novels written either. I would love to read more historically accurate romance novels — if you have any recs, please, please, please share them.