xxGBHxx
Prominent Member
I did search and I was surprised there's no thread on this anywhere so I thought I'd add one and maybe save some of you the pain.
DO NOT WATCH THIS PILE OF DOG****
Considering the hype and no small amount of momentum my wife, who absolutely loves period dramas was keen to watch. Myself, I'm less interested (though not disinterested) but the promises of rampant nookie all over the place was enough to entice.
I am 7 episodes in with one to go and all I can say right now is that it's 7 hours of my life I'm not going to get back.
It's an absolutely appalling series on so many different levels it's laughable (and the wife and I did laugh out loud for all the wrong reasons on a number of occasions)
So lets first cover the elephant in this particular room - "colourblind" casting. Why, just why? It's awful, truly awful and just doesn't work on any level for an English period drama set in Victorian era. I'll even go on to say it's woke/SJW idealism taken WAY WAY too far. For me, it just DOESN'T work. The clothing is stylised of the era (more of that later), the surroundings are of that era, everything is filmed in grand houses and mansions, horse and carriage etc. the whole shebang. So why, with all the "effort" afforded to set it in that time period then completely ruin it all with a black queen of England?! It DOESN'T work. If you're going to deviate so much from history or credibility then they might as well have had cars or TV's as well. Yes, I understand it's supposed to be a "fantasy" retelling but history is history. We all study it. We're all accustomed to it. No I don't defend or condone the clear racism that existed during that period but casting the queen as a black actor? That's ridiculous and every single time she's on screen, as good an actor as she may be, is visually jarring and completely unbelievable. I get it, black actors want to act in period dramas too and be more than slaves or maids but this just didn't work for me.
The music. Where to begin. For those of you who have read my rambling on this board over the past few years you might remember my wife and I are somewhat accomplished musicians. As a result we focus disproportionately on the music in everything we watch (or at least we often pay attention to it). The music in Bridgerton is awful. We are not snobs, at all. I listen to anything from rap to heavy metal to dance and I'm even partial to a bit of dub step when the mood takes me and everything in between. Neither of us are big fans of popular/classical crossovers but as with many things the best examples are very good even if it's not our cup of tea.
What ever possessed the director to re-create "modern" music with an orchestra I will never ever know. It's bad, and I do mean really bad because it just doesn't work. Transcribing modern pop songs (there are songs from Ariana Grande, Maroon 5, Shawn Mendes, Billie Eilish, Celeste, Taylor Swift) might just about be ok if they then didn't intersperse it with Beethoven, Offenbach, Vivaldi and Bach. Musically it makes no sense. Stylistically they clash and just because you perform pop songs on violins it doesn't make it classical. Every time it happened the wife and I were "wtf is this". This gets worse though. Much of the calssical music they did include was changed or "jazzed up". If you don't know the music, you'd likely not know or notice. But the wife and I knew every single one of them and the arrangements were jarring (for me the Vivaldi was the worst offender - what was Max Richter thinking) Which brings me neatly to...
The sex. I wouldn't normally mention or focus on something like this but the series was popularised and sensationalised for it's high sex content. The only response I can give is it was laughable. So laughable the wife and I spent almost 5 minutes in episode 6 (apparently the "one with all the sex") laughing so hard our stomachs were hurting. Now I don't want to boast, but when I have sex I last longer than 60 seconds. Every sex scene pretty much followed this formula
I did mention earlier I'd touch on the clothing. I'm no expert at all but both my wife and I commented that they all seemed very very colourful. It may be unfair. Maybe the aristocracy did wear very colourful clothing in the early 1800's but everything was SO colourful it did distract a bit.
Lastly lets talk about the script and the acting.
The script is terrible. There were glimmers of good writing in places but the overall story was contrived and completely unbelievable. It's one thing to throw caution to the wind and cast black actors into the parts it's another thing completely to have them saying and doing things no one in their right mind would do in that setting. I'm not going to go into any one particular scene or example because frankly every episode was sprinkled with them. Suffice to say my wife have sat there on numerous occasions and said "Wait what? Why did he/she do/say that? That doesn't make any sense and it completely ruins the flow.
The acting is "meh" at best but considering the mediocrity of the script there wasn't much they could do with it. I'll cover some of the main ones.
Phoebe Dynevor - Very little screen presence and very little gravitas. Miscast
Regé-Jean Page - Decent enough with poor dialogue. Ignoring the colour "issue" did a decent enough "brooding" job
Harriet Cains, Bessie Carter, Nicola Coughlan as the Featherington sisters. I think given a decent script and more screen time they could have been really good. As it was they were hampered with a poor script and too little screen time to really bring their characters alive.
Adjoa Andoh - nicely acted - stole the screen whenever she was on it (but like everyone else suffered from a poor script and too little time on screen)
Golda Rosheuvel - didn't work for me. Acting was ok but black queen of England jarred every time it was on screen.
Ruby Barker - Bad acting masked the fact her script was also possibly bad. She had a fairly central role in the story and it could have really done with someone who could act. Distracted whenever she was on screen as she couldn't deliver.
Martins Imhangbe - despite having the most ridiculous storyline was great whenever he was on screen
Everyone else was "ok" considering what they had to deliver.
Overall, as I mentioned at the start, it's 7 (soon to be 8) hours of my life I'm not getting back.
2/10
DO NOT WATCH THIS PILE OF DOG****
Considering the hype and no small amount of momentum my wife, who absolutely loves period dramas was keen to watch. Myself, I'm less interested (though not disinterested) but the promises of rampant nookie all over the place was enough to entice.
I am 7 episodes in with one to go and all I can say right now is that it's 7 hours of my life I'm not going to get back.
It's an absolutely appalling series on so many different levels it's laughable (and the wife and I did laugh out loud for all the wrong reasons on a number of occasions)
So lets first cover the elephant in this particular room - "colourblind" casting. Why, just why? It's awful, truly awful and just doesn't work on any level for an English period drama set in Victorian era. I'll even go on to say it's woke/SJW idealism taken WAY WAY too far. For me, it just DOESN'T work. The clothing is stylised of the era (more of that later), the surroundings are of that era, everything is filmed in grand houses and mansions, horse and carriage etc. the whole shebang. So why, with all the "effort" afforded to set it in that time period then completely ruin it all with a black queen of England?! It DOESN'T work. If you're going to deviate so much from history or credibility then they might as well have had cars or TV's as well. Yes, I understand it's supposed to be a "fantasy" retelling but history is history. We all study it. We're all accustomed to it. No I don't defend or condone the clear racism that existed during that period but casting the queen as a black actor? That's ridiculous and every single time she's on screen, as good an actor as she may be, is visually jarring and completely unbelievable. I get it, black actors want to act in period dramas too and be more than slaves or maids but this just didn't work for me.
The music. Where to begin. For those of you who have read my rambling on this board over the past few years you might remember my wife and I are somewhat accomplished musicians. As a result we focus disproportionately on the music in everything we watch (or at least we often pay attention to it). The music in Bridgerton is awful. We are not snobs, at all. I listen to anything from rap to heavy metal to dance and I'm even partial to a bit of dub step when the mood takes me and everything in between. Neither of us are big fans of popular/classical crossovers but as with many things the best examples are very good even if it's not our cup of tea.
What ever possessed the director to re-create "modern" music with an orchestra I will never ever know. It's bad, and I do mean really bad because it just doesn't work. Transcribing modern pop songs (there are songs from Ariana Grande, Maroon 5, Shawn Mendes, Billie Eilish, Celeste, Taylor Swift) might just about be ok if they then didn't intersperse it with Beethoven, Offenbach, Vivaldi and Bach. Musically it makes no sense. Stylistically they clash and just because you perform pop songs on violins it doesn't make it classical. Every time it happened the wife and I were "wtf is this". This gets worse though. Much of the calssical music they did include was changed or "jazzed up". If you don't know the music, you'd likely not know or notice. But the wife and I knew every single one of them and the arrangements were jarring (for me the Vivaldi was the worst offender - what was Max Richter thinking) Which brings me neatly to...
The sex. I wouldn't normally mention or focus on something like this but the series was popularised and sensationalised for it's high sex content. The only response I can give is it was laughable. So laughable the wife and I spent almost 5 minutes in episode 6 (apparently the "one with all the sex") laughing so hard our stomachs were hurting. Now I don't want to boast, but when I have sex I last longer than 60 seconds. Every sex scene pretty much followed this formula
- Kissing and fumbling for 15 seconds
- Sticking it in
- Finishing after 60 seconds and heavy breathing
I did mention earlier I'd touch on the clothing. I'm no expert at all but both my wife and I commented that they all seemed very very colourful. It may be unfair. Maybe the aristocracy did wear very colourful clothing in the early 1800's but everything was SO colourful it did distract a bit.
Lastly lets talk about the script and the acting.
The script is terrible. There were glimmers of good writing in places but the overall story was contrived and completely unbelievable. It's one thing to throw caution to the wind and cast black actors into the parts it's another thing completely to have them saying and doing things no one in their right mind would do in that setting. I'm not going to go into any one particular scene or example because frankly every episode was sprinkled with them. Suffice to say my wife have sat there on numerous occasions and said "Wait what? Why did he/she do/say that? That doesn't make any sense and it completely ruins the flow.
The acting is "meh" at best but considering the mediocrity of the script there wasn't much they could do with it. I'll cover some of the main ones.
Phoebe Dynevor - Very little screen presence and very little gravitas. Miscast
Regé-Jean Page - Decent enough with poor dialogue. Ignoring the colour "issue" did a decent enough "brooding" job
Harriet Cains, Bessie Carter, Nicola Coughlan as the Featherington sisters. I think given a decent script and more screen time they could have been really good. As it was they were hampered with a poor script and too little screen time to really bring their characters alive.
Adjoa Andoh - nicely acted - stole the screen whenever she was on it (but like everyone else suffered from a poor script and too little time on screen)
Golda Rosheuvel - didn't work for me. Acting was ok but black queen of England jarred every time it was on screen.
Ruby Barker - Bad acting masked the fact her script was also possibly bad. She had a fairly central role in the story and it could have really done with someone who could act. Distracted whenever she was on screen as she couldn't deliver.
Martins Imhangbe - despite having the most ridiculous storyline was great whenever he was on screen
Everyone else was "ok" considering what they had to deliver.
Overall, as I mentioned at the start, it's 7 (soon to be 8) hours of my life I'm not getting back.
2/10
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