While matters of the heart are often an important element of pop-culture stories, it’s rare for a TV show to unabashedly embrace the romance genre. Yet Netflix’s new series Bridgerton, the first to come out of uber-producer Shonda Rhimes’ lucrative pact with the streamer, may make other TV creators rethink that policy, and rightly so. In a TV landscape full of murder mysteries, self-serious dramas and elaborate sci-fi, Bridgerton’s escapist period fantasy and sexy trappings are a breath of fresh air.
In London, 1813, Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor), the eldest daughter of the large Bridgerton clan, is making her debut on the city’s marriage market, an annual ritual of the aristocracy. Initially favored by Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel), she seems positioned to be the most desirable lady of the season. But her older brother Anthony’s (Jonathan Bailey) meddling, combined with the commentary of a pamphlet written by Lady Whistledown (voice of Julie Andrews), who the show uses like a Regency-era Gossip Girl, quickly change her fortunes.
Determined to improve her odds of finding a husband, she makes a deal with the Duke of Hastings, Simon Basset (Regé-Jean Page), who has committed to never marrying or having children: the pair will pretend to be courting, making Daphne more desirable to other suitors while keeping the society mamas away from the Duke. Of course, if you’ve seen a romance, even of the rom-com variety, you know what happens next. These two people may say they don’t have feelings for one another, but the truth is they’re a perfect match.
While the story of Daphne and Simon’s entanglement takes center stage, the show also provides noteworthy storylines for many of the other Bridgerton children, including Anthony, who is trying to do his duty to the family while maintaining his own scandalous affairs, and Eloise (Claudia Jessie), Daphne’s younger sister, who hates the idea of having her potential squashed by marriage. Meanwhile, the Bridgertons are contrasted with the less appealing Featherington family, whose three daughters are also on the market but are being shown up by Marina (Ruby Barker), a distant cousin visiting from the country who has a secret of her own.
The show, which is based on a series of books by Julia Quinn, includes a large cast of characters, but they’re all distinctive enough to easily follow their individual stories. The actors do a fantastic job of treading a fine line between period-appropriate propriety and modern looseness, giving the characters an accessibility that enables viewers to invest in them, even as they provide a fairly rounded picture of the challenges presented by society at the time.
And while everything seems restrained on the surface, the show makes it clear from early on that it’s not interested in keeping things that way. Within the first five minutes of the first episode, a major character is introduced while having sex, and as the series goes on, there are many more intimate scenes and steamy moments, many of them fairly explicit. Given Rhimes’ first show, Grey’s Anatomy, made a splash when it premiered because of the eye-popping sex scenes it brought to broadcast television, the sex scenes Bridgerton brings to streaming feel like a natural progression (although it's nothing we haven't seen on a streaming series before). Furthermore, like Rhimes’ other shows, the female gaze factors strongly into the storytelling, and as a result, the men tend to show far more skin than the women, Page especially; however, when the actors look this good, it’s hard to imagine anyone finding fault with this.
Another hallmark of Rhimes' work is the diversity of her shows' casts and that extends to Bridgerton too. Quite a few of the aristocrats are Black, and the Queen herself is mixed race. The series briefly explains this by noting that the Queen used her power to bestow titles on people of color, elevating their position in society. This creates an alternate history of the era, yet the show has been cast with such care that it seems entirely organic to the story.
Between the ballgowns and bows, the music includes another nod to the present day as the orchestras at many of the society events play covers of pop songs by the likes of Ariana Grande, Shawn Mendes and Taylor Swift. It’s a small Easter egg, but it adds to the fun.
Bridgerton also bakes in commentary on topics like marriage, gender roles and the choice to be happy. Of course, a viewer doesn’t have to pay attention to any of that to enjoy this light, briskly paced series. So although everything doesn't work perfectly -- a last-minute reveal, in particular, defies logic -- there isn't a lot to quibble about here. Ultimately, Bridgerton is a delightfully swoony romance that will leave you wanting more.
Bridgerton, which stars Phoebe Dynevor, Regé-Jean Page, Jonathan Bailey, Nicola Coughlan, Claudia Jessie, Ruby Barker, Golda Rosheuvel, Luke Thompson, Luke Newton, Ruth Gemmell, Polly Walker and Julie Andrews, premieres on Friday, Dec. 25 on Netflix.