As we all know, Shonda Rhimes has given us many hit shows, like Grey’s Anatomy and How to Get Away with Murder. Now, Rhimes has given us a new series from her own company that took Netflix by storm, Bridgerton.
Netflix’s “Bridgerton” begins like how you would see any other British period time drama about the fancy folk. The sun is shining down upon the little cove of Grosvenor Square. There are horses pulling beautiful carriages along the streets. A gentleman dressed in his finest clothing gives a little nod to a passerby as he takes his morning stroll.
Then, BAM! This is where you see that “Bridgerton” is not entirely told like every other British period drama about the fancy folk. The prosperous gentlemen that you see dressed in the finest clothing, with the best carriages, and the biggest house and title, is Black; the gaily dressed woman that he escorts is white. I am all for it. I love a good series that will challenge the stereotypes that would have been present back in such a time period.
The Netflix series follows the Bridgerton family as they embark on a journey to find love. Our main character, Daphne Bridgerton, has just formally come out into the marriage market and is looking for a proper suitor; however, those dreams are almost crushed when a little column written by the mysterious Lady Whistledown casts doubt on Daphne. This is when we see our honorable and incredibly sexy Duke of Hastings, Simon Basset, help Daphne achieve her goal of a good match by pretending to be interested in her. In an interesting turn of events, we see that Simon and Daphne do end up truly loving each other through their time together.
We also see how other families are struggling to find their daughters a match before the season is up. One such family would be the Featheringtons. The Featheringtons are a group of three girls, along with their overbearing mother and an absent father,who always seem to wear some of the most exuberant and unusually colored dresses. The youngest Featherington, Penelope, is incredibly good friends with Eloise Bridgerton, and even harbors a secret crush on Eloise’s brother Colin Bridgerton. The Featheringtons, for the most part, seemed to be very backgroundish until the arrival of Marina Thompson, who shakes the town with an incredible scandal that could ruin the Featherington name.
Bridgerton may be one of those British television series that follows an old time period, but it still manages to incorporate 21st century pop culture with fancy string arrangements of pop songs (like Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next”).Those fancy balls that appear to be incredibly boring and posh, really get a lot more entertaining with these musical arrangements.
The hit Netflix series also seems to focus on the mechanics of sex. It provides it from a woman’s perspective, the feelings, and the declaration of purpose that comes with it. The series makes a point of how keeping a woman in the dark about the mechanics of sex and the sensations that come from it is a society’s way of keeping them in the dark. As the initially naïve Daphne discovers, sexual knowledge — having the owner’s manual to one’s body — is power.
“Bridgerton”, overall, is a series that I would recommend to anyone to watch. It may take some time to get into the series and the characters, but it is well worth it. The drama that you see there is like nothing else you can see on a 21st century television series. Additionally, the scandals that are presented, the struggles of our main characters to love each other, a high society woman writing all of the dirty secrets of polite society, and the possibility of a murder are all great reasons to sit down and binge watch this new Netflix television series.