SPOILER ALERT: Don’t read if you haven’t watched “Bridgerton,” broadcasting now on Netflix.
A story driven by emotionally complex relationships, with a mysterious element of “whodunnit” added about a gossip columnist telling the secrets of high society under a pseudonym, in many ways, it seems to have left the minds of those in Shondaland. But while this story, an eight-episode season of “Bridgerton” on Netflix, is the first scripted project by Shondaland to debut on the streamer, it actually has its roots in Julia Quinn’s series of nine books.
Quinn’s series, which begins with “The Duke and Me”, and which also serves as a source of material for Shondaland’s “Bridgerton”, centers on the rich and powerful Bridgerton family in Regency England, a time when women were still presented to society each season to get married. The first season of the new drama series focuses mainly on young Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) and her deal with Duke Simon Basset (Regé-Jean Page) to enter into a relationship, despite apparently wanting very different things. Throughout the season, real feelings start to form for each other, but so does the conflict, especially about the fact that he says he doesn’t want to start a family, but he won’t open up about the reason.
“In essence, there is a hook for that, which is the idea that over a period of time in the Regency of England, there is a widowed woman who loves her children and needs them to get married, but she believes and wants her children to they married for love and not status and not for most reasons why most people got married in Regency England, ”says executive producer Betsy Beers of Quinn’s novels.
Noting that Shonda Rhimes had read the books years ago and loved them, the series seemed like the perfect choice for the company to adapt to an ongoing series because “it’s a premise that keeps on giving”, but also because “it’s a story about how – among all the obstacles in front of you, royalty, status of privilege, anything else you can think of – how do you find out who you really are and how do you express that in your life and in your love? ” she continues.
For Daphne, this journey includes harsh alert calls at times. “I always thought that if the first season had a subtitle, it would be ‘The Education of Daphne Bridgerton’”, says showrunner Chris Van Dusen. “She starts out as an innocent debutante, wide-eyed and perfect. When she starts the season, she clearly knows nothing about sex, and she knows very little about love. So she starts a little tense and doesn’t even know that she’s still part of a system. “
Knowing Simon, who vowed not to have his own family because of the way his father treated him as a child with speech difficulties, the two are “pretending to be something they are not and are saying they want something when it is clear that they want the another – they want each other. They are inventing a trick for society, but they are also planning for each other, ”continues Van Dusen.
The first season also offers important glimpses of a wide range of figures in this society, from Daphne’s brother, Anthony (Jonathan Bailey), who is maintaining a relationship that he cannot disclose; his sister Eloise (Claudia Jessie), who is ashamed to perform in society and currently has no interest in it, preferring to find out who Lady Whistledown, the mysterious gossip columnist, really is. It also expands from that family to include the Featheringtons, one of which (Penelope, played by Nicola Coughlan) is revealed as Lady Whistledown, and one of which is a secretly pregnant young woman (Marina, played by Ruby Baker), the family welcomed for reasons selfish.
“In all respects, the Featheringtons provide a clear distinction from the Bridgerton family: the Bridgerton family is full of love and lively and all about the Featheringtons is that there is no love in that house – at least between Lady Featherington and her husband,” says Van Dusen. “That’s how we balanced this beautiful love story about everything that love can be. It wouldn’t be so impactful if there was no other side to it. “
Van Dusen, who has spent his entire career working for Shondaland, starting with “Grey’s Anatomy” and also writing for “Scandal”, for example, confirms that, although other Shondaland dramas from the past he worked on, sometimes only fake – dead characters, Lord Featherington (Ben Miller) is actually dead at the end of the first season. He also shares that he wanted to keep Lady Whistledown’s true identity the same as in the book series, because his writers’ room liked the dichotomy that “she presents as a wall flower, that person who just sinks in the background and doesn’t really have an opinion about things, but then you see a totally different side of it. “
Penelope’s real motivations for sharing secrets – and naming names – will be food for promising future seasons, he says, which is part of the reason they wanted to reveal who Lady Whistledown was at the end of the first season. Likewise, if the program receives an official green light for at least one more season, it plans to expand the center of Daphne and Simon’s story further to explore more detailed stories about each of the eight Bridgerton brothers, similar to how the series book do it. Eloise, in particular, he notes, “is just getting started. She is just a spectator in the first season and can comment on the things Daphne goes through and express her disdain for it, but I think it will be a totally different story when she really is part of the world. “
Shondaland’s first project to be released on Netflix was the documentary “Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker”, following Debbie Allen and her renowned dance academy as they prepared to present a production of “Hot Chocolate Nutcracker”. Then, with a romantic period piece it indicates the wide range of programming that the company plans to deliver in its new home.
“The scope is intense,” Beers says of the “Bridgerton” world. “It is exuberant, it is beautiful, it is clearly complex and a great undertaking as a series. But we are also interested in smaller stories. Netflix understood that one of our top priorities in Shondaland was really exploring worlds that we hadn’t explored before. Expect us to continue to bring you things we love, for which we are passionate. And he expects us to bring programs of all different genres to the public, set in different places and that have one thing in common: good stories with good characters. “