Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story Reviews Are In, And Most Are Loving Shonda Rhimes' New Romance
YES!
It is hardly a surprise to anyone with a Netflix subscription, or even those without one who simply pay attention to TV news, that the Regency romance, Bridgerton, would be granted a spinoff. The series became an instant mega-hit after its Christmas 2020 debut, and has inspired everything from much swooning over its dialogue, to new fashion choices for many viewers, and a feverish wait for each new season.
As fans continue to look forward to the upcoming Bridgerton Season 3, we’ll very (very) soon be gifted with Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, when it releases on May 4 as part of the 2023 TV schedule. Luckily, the reviews are in for the new Shonda Rhimes series, and it appears that many audience members will be just as in love with the romantic outing that shows us how the young queen and king’s love story began as they are with the flagship series.
One particular bit of praise that appeared to be universal among the reviews I read went to the performances of the whole cast, none the least of which was for our new, younger royal, cast lead India Amarteifio. It sounds like she’ll let viewers add to their list of the best Queen Charlotte moments pretty easily, as Morgan Cormack of the Radio Times noted how she draws the audience in and gives us everything we’d want in a young and still-learning version of the leader:
Additionally, Cormack said that fans of the original series don’t need to worry about any loss of the ingredients that have made that show so popular, while still being able to get something new from Charlotte and King George’s (Corey Mylchreest) romantic adventure:
One of the many things that people love about Bridgerton are the production numbers and the classical covers of modern pop songs that always go with them. After giving a thumbs up to the “instant, Jane Austen-esque, period-piece rom-com chemistry” that Amarteifio and Mylchreest have “from the get-go,” Richard Roeper from the Chicago Sun-Times had great things to say about how those high society soirées are used in the new show, along with revealing how enjoyable the tale is overall:
However, if you’re reading these reviews and starting to think that Queen Charlotte will simply be more of the same, Kristen Baldwin from Entertainment Weekly is here to set you straight:
Fans will know that Charlotte and George have far from a clear-cut happily ever after in the “modern day” of the parent show, and many reviewers also felt the new show did a deft job of handling conversations about the young king’s already declining mental health, in a time when such things weren’t even close to being fully understood, as did CNN’s Brian Lowry. He also noted that while the drama does offer more for those who adore Bridgerton’s sexiest sex scenes, there’s also an “unabashed sense of romance” for those who preferred the slow-burn of Season 2:
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Finally, a lot has been said about how the original series has handled race, a Black woman being in England’s royal family (along with her offspring), and her presence leading to a seemingly post-race society. Shania Russell of Slash Film thought that while Queen Charlotte does more to address those topics and how the world we see on Bridgerton came about, it’s not quite a slam dunk for those who want a more thorough examination of such a societal shift and how it impacted politics. However, you’ll be glad to know that her issues with that part of the story didn’t really detract from her enjoyment of the larger series:
You can see for yourself whether or not the virtues of Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story outweigh any flaws when the show debuts as part of the Netflix new releases on May 4.
Covering The Witcher, Outlander, Virgin River, Sweet Magnolias and a slew of other streaming shows, Adrienne Jones is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend, and started in the fall of 2015. In addition to writing and editing stories on a variety of different topics, she also spends her work days trying to find new ways to write about the many romantic entanglements that fictional characters find themselves in on TV shows. She graduated from Mizzou with a degree in Photojournalism.