So, as a fan of the book TVWLM, I am...not as delighted with S2.
Partly this is because the book is actually about Anthony and Kate, while the series is mostly about Anthony - his feelings, his flashbacks, his thoughts, etc. Which is kind of what would one would expect from a show called "Bridgerton", but I am not in romance for the heroes, I'm in it for the heroines.
Additionally, the romantic trope which I most loved in the book is largely absent from the TV season: "flung together and learning to love each other" where two characters are in a situation together and while they don't get along to start with, they learn to appreciate each other. The overarching trope of TV season is more or less "slap slap kiss" which takes out the 'learning to appreciate' part which is the really enjoyable part of character development.
I may be reading into things, but I'm feeling someone in the writing room really prefers Edwina to Kate. Edwina got most of the character development, got the big wedding and lots of the focus, acknowledged none of her own failings (you told your sister you wanted to marry the viscount because you loved him - your sister who has made you the centre of her world - and then you get angry with her that she denied her own feelings over yours? SWEETHEART, no), and gets to come out looking like a princess - possibly literally with Prince McLaggen.
It is my eternal fate to like the Teyla Emmagans when the writers prefer Jennifer Keller, the Maria Hills when everyone only wants Natasha, the Jan Bradys when everyone is MARSHA MARSHA MARSHA. But I don't have to be happy about it!
I would have liked more Kate/Anthony interaction myself that wasn't about guilt, shame, Edwina, or frustration with each other.
If it was up to me? I'd have ended the failed engagement at The Sheffield Dinner, then, in the midst of recriminations, have Kate/Anthony caught together in a situation a la Prudence Featherington and her cousin - except perhaps a little more risque, requiring a very small, very private wedding. Have the wedding night and the sex montages, then their living together (on the country estate) and dealing with each other and learning to love each other while being Shunned by the ton. This sequence would be interspersed with what's happening in the ton back in London: gossip and backbiting, the Featherington plotting, Eloise and Theo and the hunt for Whistledown, Penelope and Colin, Benedict and his art school issues.
The main conflict between them is Kate discovering that she wants love which she doesn't think Anthony can give her, just desire. And Anthony insisting that this is just lust and he doesn't have to be in love with his wife. The conflict reaches a point perhaps when Anthony calls Kate 'beautiful' in the middle of sex (as per the book) and Kate thinks he's thinking of someone else. They can't escape forever of course, they have to return to town and give their first ball, during which something BIG happens (I would actually have done the Public Outing of Lord Featherington, which outrages the ton, but Lady Featherington plays it as her and her dear girls being hard done by a deceiver), Violet Bridgerton has That Talk About Love with her son, and Anthony accepts that he loves Kate and pretty much announces it at the ball in front of the ton with the smiles and approval of the Queen and Edwina, which more or less eliminates the scandal of the Fiancee Swap.
I might write it in fanfic. Maybe. Chapter style.
But, see, the first problem is that I don't think like script writers from Hollywood and TV production. And definitely not like a Shondaland writer.
It was enjoyable, yes, but not as robust as it could have been.
--
It is true that the Shondaland Regency does not actually resemble in any way, shape, or form, the actual regency period. However this has rather less to do with race and everything to do with behaviour, propriety, and convention!
This is the season where the show threw out anything even vaguely resembling Regency behaviours, mores, or practises.
During my watch party with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rmc28 there was a lot of protesting at the number of conversations taking place in open spaces where other people could hear. Doors left open. Servants standing right there. Out in the street WHILE DRESSED IN AN EVENING GOWN.
Genteel young ladies do not visit anywhere on their own. They do not visit print shops by day or by night. They do not have conversations with men in print shops (Eloise and Theo). They do not meet with men in closed room libraries (Pen and Colin). They do not entertain men in their bedrooms (Kate and Anthony).
Incidentally, given how insistent Lady Featherington was on Lord Featherington marrying Prudence, she doesn't say a thing about Colin marrying Penelope when catching them in the closed room of the Featherington Estate. Perhaps largely because she doesn't actually think that Penelope could snag Colin anyway. That's a plot point in Book 4, where Lady Featherington is convinced that Colin wants to marry Pen's younger sister (non-existent in the tv series) when Colin, having realised he wants to marry Pen, goes to the Featheringtons to declare his intentions to marry 'one of Lord Featherington's daughters' and Lady Featherington gets not just the wrong end of the stick but the wrong stick entirely.
(Oh, I just remembered: I do hope Lady Featherington has the moment where, when she realises that Pen is actually going to get married, she says something to the effect that she'd imagined that Pen would be the daughter that wouldn't leave her, but she's glad that Pen is getting a marriage after all - it doesn't sound particularly nice, but it's actually a really good character moment for Lady F.)
I know that, in a technical production sense, the cinematographers have to fit the cameras somewhere, and it's easier to shoot scenes where the camera has already been set up. BUT.
--
Things that are definitely falling apart in this season: Eloise and Penelope's relationship, Penelope and Colin's relationship, the Featherington fortunes, the Lady Whistledown mystery, Lady Danbury & Violet's friendship, Lady Danbury & the Queen's friendship, and Benedict's sense of self.
Things that I enjoyed: the familial relationships, both the good (Bridgerton, Sharma's pre-wedding) and the not-so-great (Featheringtons).
One of my issues with this season, I think, is that I can see how they wanted to set things up, but they did so really clumsily. One of the best things in the book was the way the Sheffields|Sharmas related to each other: Mary was the mother, Edwina wasn't a spoiled princess brat, Kate got to have feelings that her family recognised and tried to encourage even if she did the self-sacrificing thing for the most part. I think they went overboard in the show trying to play it all up.
The Featherington fortunes was an entertaining subplot: certainly the new Lord Featherington and Lady Featherington are frighteningly well-matched. Although she does have a point that he's mostly self-interested, while her self-interest extends to her family.
(I feel like this is a point that got missed in Eloise's confrontation with Pen: Pen's self-interest was, indeed, self-interested, but it extended to Eloise. Eloise's concerns were entirely self-interested: her freedoms, her rights, her reputation, her feelings of betrayal. Did she think about anyone else in her Pursuit Of The Rights Of Woman? *crickets* Oh wait, she thought of Theo, the young man she's infatuated with...
I don't hold much hope that there'll be any elucidation of this in next season; just as the writers put a lot of Edwina into a storyline that's supposed to be Kate's, the writers have built up Eloise's independence and 'modernisation' in a way that is developed to appeal to a modern audience. She's going to have a fall, maybe, but she'll have a lot of lines in the process.)
I found that in the last episode, the relationship between Philippa and Prudence was actually very 'Bridgerton' in style: Philippa poking fun at Prudence, even if there was a faintly malicious tinge to it. I really want to see more Philippa and Pen, tbh. Particularly now that Philippa is married and maybe can give Pen a bit of an escape? Sisters, I really want more sisters. And since Francesca is unlikely to make a decent appearance (apparently the actor had another gig), then there's not going to be much El and Francesca.
The talk between Anthony and Gregory (first and last sons) about their dad was good - a bit more of the younger kids, please. Also, Gregory is a sweetheart and a charmer. Which I suppose he is in the books, too.
Benedict's art school arc was intriguing. A little saddening but still intriguing. Where does it send him as a character? I kind of expected him to have met Sophie at the school - perhaps in a maidservant capacity. On the other hand, the Featherington Ball gives him the opportunity to meet Sophie as per the book. And then it'll all go off into somewhere else and a whole slew of 'new' plotlines.
Overall, it was fun, but it probably would have been more so if I hadn't read the book first.
tl;dr is: it's an acceptable AU to the book, but I liked the book rather more.
Partly this is because the book is actually about Anthony and Kate, while the series is mostly about Anthony - his feelings, his flashbacks, his thoughts, etc. Which is kind of what would one would expect from a show called "Bridgerton", but I am not in romance for the heroes, I'm in it for the heroines.
Additionally, the romantic trope which I most loved in the book is largely absent from the TV season: "flung together and learning to love each other" where two characters are in a situation together and while they don't get along to start with, they learn to appreciate each other. The overarching trope of TV season is more or less "slap slap kiss" which takes out the 'learning to appreciate' part which is the really enjoyable part of character development.
I may be reading into things, but I'm feeling someone in the writing room really prefers Edwina to Kate. Edwina got most of the character development, got the big wedding and lots of the focus, acknowledged none of her own failings (you told your sister you wanted to marry the viscount because you loved him - your sister who has made you the centre of her world - and then you get angry with her that she denied her own feelings over yours? SWEETHEART, no), and gets to come out looking like a princess - possibly literally with Prince McLaggen.
It is my eternal fate to like the Teyla Emmagans when the writers prefer Jennifer Keller, the Maria Hills when everyone only wants Natasha, the Jan Bradys when everyone is MARSHA MARSHA MARSHA. But I don't have to be happy about it!
I would have liked more Kate/Anthony interaction myself that wasn't about guilt, shame, Edwina, or frustration with each other.
If it was up to me? I'd have ended the failed engagement at The Sheffield Dinner, then, in the midst of recriminations, have Kate/Anthony caught together in a situation a la Prudence Featherington and her cousin - except perhaps a little more risque, requiring a very small, very private wedding. Have the wedding night and the sex montages, then their living together (on the country estate) and dealing with each other and learning to love each other while being Shunned by the ton. This sequence would be interspersed with what's happening in the ton back in London: gossip and backbiting, the Featherington plotting, Eloise and Theo and the hunt for Whistledown, Penelope and Colin, Benedict and his art school issues.
The main conflict between them is Kate discovering that she wants love which she doesn't think Anthony can give her, just desire. And Anthony insisting that this is just lust and he doesn't have to be in love with his wife. The conflict reaches a point perhaps when Anthony calls Kate 'beautiful' in the middle of sex (as per the book) and Kate thinks he's thinking of someone else. They can't escape forever of course, they have to return to town and give their first ball, during which something BIG happens (I would actually have done the Public Outing of Lord Featherington, which outrages the ton, but Lady Featherington plays it as her and her dear girls being hard done by a deceiver), Violet Bridgerton has That Talk About Love with her son, and Anthony accepts that he loves Kate and pretty much announces it at the ball in front of the ton with the smiles and approval of the Queen and Edwina, which more or less eliminates the scandal of the Fiancee Swap.
I might write it in fanfic. Maybe. Chapter style.
But, see, the first problem is that I don't think like script writers from Hollywood and TV production. And definitely not like a Shondaland writer.
It was enjoyable, yes, but not as robust as it could have been.
--
It is true that the Shondaland Regency does not actually resemble in any way, shape, or form, the actual regency period. However this has rather less to do with race and everything to do with behaviour, propriety, and convention!
This is the season where the show threw out anything even vaguely resembling Regency behaviours, mores, or practises.
During my watch party with
rmc28 there was a lot of protesting at the number of conversations taking place in open spaces where other people could hear. Doors left open. Servants standing right there. Out in the street WHILE DRESSED IN AN EVENING GOWN.Genteel young ladies do not visit anywhere on their own. They do not visit print shops by day or by night. They do not have conversations with men in print shops (Eloise and Theo). They do not meet with men in closed room libraries (Pen and Colin). They do not entertain men in their bedrooms (Kate and Anthony).
Incidentally, given how insistent Lady Featherington was on Lord Featherington marrying Prudence, she doesn't say a thing about Colin marrying Penelope when catching them in the closed room of the Featherington Estate. Perhaps largely because she doesn't actually think that Penelope could snag Colin anyway. That's a plot point in Book 4, where Lady Featherington is convinced that Colin wants to marry Pen's younger sister (non-existent in the tv series) when Colin, having realised he wants to marry Pen, goes to the Featheringtons to declare his intentions to marry 'one of Lord Featherington's daughters' and Lady Featherington gets not just the wrong end of the stick but the wrong stick entirely.
(Oh, I just remembered: I do hope Lady Featherington has the moment where, when she realises that Pen is actually going to get married, she says something to the effect that she'd imagined that Pen would be the daughter that wouldn't leave her, but she's glad that Pen is getting a marriage after all - it doesn't sound particularly nice, but it's actually a really good character moment for Lady F.)
I know that, in a technical production sense, the cinematographers have to fit the cameras somewhere, and it's easier to shoot scenes where the camera has already been set up. BUT.
--
Things that are definitely falling apart in this season: Eloise and Penelope's relationship, Penelope and Colin's relationship, the Featherington fortunes, the Lady Whistledown mystery, Lady Danbury & Violet's friendship, Lady Danbury & the Queen's friendship, and Benedict's sense of self.
Things that I enjoyed: the familial relationships, both the good (Bridgerton, Sharma's pre-wedding) and the not-so-great (Featheringtons).
One of my issues with this season, I think, is that I can see how they wanted to set things up, but they did so really clumsily. One of the best things in the book was the way the Sheffields|Sharmas related to each other: Mary was the mother, Edwina wasn't a spoiled princess brat, Kate got to have feelings that her family recognised and tried to encourage even if she did the self-sacrificing thing for the most part. I think they went overboard in the show trying to play it all up.
The Featherington fortunes was an entertaining subplot: certainly the new Lord Featherington and Lady Featherington are frighteningly well-matched. Although she does have a point that he's mostly self-interested, while her self-interest extends to her family.
(I feel like this is a point that got missed in Eloise's confrontation with Pen: Pen's self-interest was, indeed, self-interested, but it extended to Eloise. Eloise's concerns were entirely self-interested: her freedoms, her rights, her reputation, her feelings of betrayal. Did she think about anyone else in her Pursuit Of The Rights Of Woman? *crickets* Oh wait, she thought of Theo, the young man she's infatuated with...
I don't hold much hope that there'll be any elucidation of this in next season; just as the writers put a lot of Edwina into a storyline that's supposed to be Kate's, the writers have built up Eloise's independence and 'modernisation' in a way that is developed to appeal to a modern audience. She's going to have a fall, maybe, but she'll have a lot of lines in the process.)
I found that in the last episode, the relationship between Philippa and Prudence was actually very 'Bridgerton' in style: Philippa poking fun at Prudence, even if there was a faintly malicious tinge to it. I really want to see more Philippa and Pen, tbh. Particularly now that Philippa is married and maybe can give Pen a bit of an escape? Sisters, I really want more sisters. And since Francesca is unlikely to make a decent appearance (apparently the actor had another gig), then there's not going to be much El and Francesca.
The talk between Anthony and Gregory (first and last sons) about their dad was good - a bit more of the younger kids, please. Also, Gregory is a sweetheart and a charmer. Which I suppose he is in the books, too.
Benedict's art school arc was intriguing. A little saddening but still intriguing. Where does it send him as a character? I kind of expected him to have met Sophie at the school - perhaps in a maidservant capacity. On the other hand, the Featherington Ball gives him the opportunity to meet Sophie as per the book. And then it'll all go off into somewhere else and a whole slew of 'new' plotlines.
Overall, it was fun, but it probably would have been more so if I hadn't read the book first.
tl;dr is: it's an acceptable AU to the book, but I liked the book rather more.
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It never even seems to occur to her to invite her maid-chaperone inside with her rather than stranding her in the street.
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I was hoping they might elaborate on the class thing more explicitly, but even Theo ends up backtracking on his 'well, I guess you're going back to your class' line claiming it's because he thought LW was having him tracked/followed.