As a professional review put it, "Very good as long as you have no expectations of historical accuracy." Exactly.
Queen Victoria should be an interesting enough person that one could craft several seasons of entertainment and information. (Admittedly it might be hard to know how many seasons it would last and cover her extended reign accordingly.) However, this is "Queen Vicki" for the millennial crowd, and as written by a woman has typically strong "girl power" vibe. (Sure she had power, but as a monarch not a feminist.) The focus is on her many angsts, her romantic attachments real or imagined (i.e. Melbourne), and her relationship with a rather wimpy Albert - who in real life she loved so much that she mourned him for 10 years.
Of course, Victoria has to be the most enlightened of all - even though her reign is synonymous with tightly controlled morals. She doesn't want to be a "broodmare", but in real life had nine children - child-bearing being the priority of any queen. Season two amps up the political correctness. In the opening eps we get to see a black (American?) actor giving them Othello, and a near infatuation with Ada, Countess of Lovelace (for whom the Ada programming language is named) as a female mathematician. (Although the 'calculating machine' was nearly all Charles Babbage's.) And finally a gaay angle between two dandies of the court. Why the "Upstairs Downstairs / Downton Abbey doings of the servants are part of the show is beyond me.
The costumes are sumptuous, the sets and settings beautiful, and mostly classically trained actors deliver their accented lines impeccably. None of this can compensate for the poor writing or wan themes.
Queen Victoria should be an interesting enough person that one could craft several seasons of entertainment and information. (Admittedly it might be hard to know how many seasons it would last and cover her extended reign accordingly.) However, this is "Queen Vicki" for the millennial crowd, and as written by a woman has typically strong "girl power" vibe. (Sure she had power, but as a monarch not a feminist.) The focus is on her many angsts, her romantic attachments real or imagined (i.e. Melbourne), and her relationship with a rather wimpy Albert - who in real life she loved so much that she mourned him for 10 years.
Of course, Victoria has to be the most enlightened of all - even though her reign is synonymous with tightly controlled morals. She doesn't want to be a "broodmare", but in real life had nine children - child-bearing being the priority of any queen. Season two amps up the political correctness. In the opening eps we get to see a black (American?) actor giving them Othello, and a near infatuation with Ada, Countess of Lovelace (for whom the Ada programming language is named) as a female mathematician. (Although the 'calculating machine' was nearly all Charles Babbage's.) And finally a gaay angle between two dandies of the court. Why the "Upstairs Downstairs / Downton Abbey doings of the servants are part of the show is beyond me.
The costumes are sumptuous, the sets and settings beautiful, and mostly classically trained actors deliver their accented lines impeccably. None of this can compensate for the poor writing or wan themes.