TV Binge: Bridgerton (Season 1, 2020)

Bridgerton (Season 1, 2020)

Creator: Chris Van Dusen

Cast: Phoebe Dynevor, Regé-Jean Page, Jonathan Bailey, Ruby Barker, Nicola Coughlan, Ruth Gemmell, Adjoa Andoh, Claudia Jessie, Luke Newton, Luke Thompson, Polly Walker, Golda Rosheuval

Wealth, lust, and betrayal set against the backdrop of Regency-era England, seen through the eyes of the powerful Bridgerton family. – IMDB

Based on Julia Quinn’s first book of the Bridgerton book series called The Duke and I, Bridgerton’s first season is like a Regency London’s era of Gossip Girl. Its scandalous and there’s a mystery lady called Lady Whistledown writing on everyone’s gossip and spreading her speculations about different situations. Set during the beginning of the season where the debutantes go into society to look for their suitors, the first season is all about Daphne, the oldest daughter of the Bridgerton family as she enters into society and navigates her way through everyone’s different opinions before hatching a plan with the newly arrived Duke Hastings who wants to craft a fake connection with her to avoid having to deal with other mothers of available daughters as he doesn’t want to marry while creating the smoke screen for Daphne that will make other men desire her more because of already being desired. Of course, its no doubt that Daphne and Duke Hastings form a real connection eventually and it becomes quite the push and pull relationship, full of drama and soapy elements as well as the many sex and intimate scenes going on.

Bridgerton is thoroughly a guilty pleasure. There’s no other way to put it. Its not exactly untapped territory especially for myself that watches a ton of Chinese dramas which revolve around crafting fake relationships that turn into real connections and so on so forth. What makes Bridgerton fun is of course the Regency London era with its beautiful houses and lovely clothes and the very innocent and protected debutantes who are protected from everything about sex and intimacy. At the same time, the world that its crafted is a racially integrated Regency era London where (according to Wikipedia because I haven’t read the source material) it differs from the book’s setting. However, they do a great job and justifying how it all came to be briefly in conversation. The story itself definitely has those expected frustrating moments where the two misunderstand each other and then there’s some scheming that creates them to diverge in their feelings and its a whole roller coaster ride in terms of the few months of the season that Daphne and Duke Hastings go through.

Other than the setting, Bridgerton is all about the characters. For starters, the main couple Daphne and Duke Hastings has a ton of chemistry and that reflects well as their connection grows stronger and they love each other more. The sex scenes are done incredibly well and very believable. Above all of it though, its about Daphne’s sexual awakening and the gradual revelation and learning about how sex works and how getting pregnant works and all that comes together that crafts her character in a certain way. Aside from these two, the story does also deliver some other great characters. The favorite going to Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) who is Duke Hastings aka Simon’s mentor. Hands down the best character in the whole first season. The first season also laid down the foundation of the Bridgerton family whether its their widowed mother Violet or the three brothers, Anthony, Benedict, Colin and Gregory or the younger sisters Eloise, Francesca and Hyacinth who all make an appearance, big or small. Seeing as the following seasons will be about the other members of the family, that foundation is rather important plus the first season also follows some of the relationships and character development for a few of the siblings especially for Anthony, Benedict, Eloise and Colin.

There’s not a whole lot to say about the 10 episodes of the first season of Bridgerton. For those who like Regency era London settings, this one is a pretty decent choice. The first season’s most compelling parts are the scenes that build up the relationship between Daphne and Simon. The slow connection and the comfort; the change from disapproval to love; the fake relationship to real; what they teach other and grow together: it has its frustrating moments but then it also has some well-crafted moments. The second compelling element has to be trying to figure out who is Lady Whistledown especially when she’s voiced by Julie Andrews. When I finished watching it the first time, I had some mixed feelings about it but when I watched it a second time around, I realized that there is something there that does work.

As an aside, Season 2 has been confirmed and its going to follow the brother Anthony who had his tangent in season 1 although, I was rather lukewarm to the whole thing. However, the season ended hinting that it would be focused on him finding a wife so we will see where that goes. In the meantime, I’m going to catch up with the series when I have a moment see how the series match up to the source material.

TV Binge: Too Hot to Handle (Season 1, 2020)

Too Hot To Handle (Season 1, 2020)

On the shores of paradise, gorgeous singles meet and mingle. But there’s a twist. To win a $100,000 grand prize, they’ll have to give up sex. – IMDB

Netflix has been working on overtime at creating their own exclusive series to cover all forms of reality dating series and social distancing like The Circle and Love is Blind. Its all fairly guilty pleasure watches. What makes Too Hot To Handle from the two mentioned above is that those two have some social experiment elements to it, whereas this one is strictly guilty pleasure and right from the get-go in the first episode when the contestants are announced, its already positive that these people involved are all fairly shallow and full of themselves (there’s a difference between self-confidence and being full of themselves).

When you pick a series that focuses on watching a bunch of contestants in their bathing suits half naked 90% of the time living together who have to give up sex and any rule breaking is results in different amounts of reducing their total jackpot of $100,000, its hard to think that it is going to have a lot of substance. On top of that, the show has a unnamed narrator which made some pretty funny sarcastic comments, which I did enjoy, and all the contestants were observed by an cone-shaped air freshener-looking AI called Lana that would notify them of rule-breaking, how much money was left as well as liaison between organizing dates and other announcements. I’m not going to lie that I hesitated to start this one up but in the state of the world that this show is arriving at, I was down for some mindless entertainment that didn’t require a ton of my attention.

Let’s break it down. Too Hot To Handle is full of contestants that honestly aren’t very likable. I mean, in their introductions, they pretty much all share the same values of thinking they are total bombshells and studs. I say, “thinking” because well, beauty is to the eye of the beholder and I’m no longer in the phase of life where looks can cover up some very annoying traits (which some of these contestants do have). But, when you start up a show like Too Hot To Handle, you have to expect a few things and know exactly what to expect and be okay with that. One of those things is cringe-y moments and rather stupid commentaries and boy, are those plentiful in here especially in the first few episodes as we get to know these contestants a little more and they are in their first interactions.

That’s not to say that the show doesn’t aim to reform these contestants a little by giving them little workshops. They are punished for not embracing the rules and engaging in personal development. All these things results in monetary punishment most of the time with some exceptions. The workshops focus on sorting out their issues whether its in ladies-only or men-only workshop to embrace their own issues and empowerment while also having workshops together on relationship like trust and communication, etc. Its fairly generic stuff that happens as it introduces some exercises with fancy names. Its part of the show that tries to add some substance and give these contestants a little more depth and growth than when they first started. Aside from that, like many of these types of show, they throw in some plot twists to give it some exciting elements and adds in rewards instead of only punishments.

Overall, Too Hot to Handle is exactly what it advertises to be. You already know whether you will enjoy this one or not before you start this up. If you hate reality shows like this, then stay far away. If you like the pure guilty pleasure of this type of show and you might even call this trashy (but I don’t want to be mean), then you will like it for exactly what you expect to get.  For myself, it fit the time and I kind of didn’t mind it too much once I got past the first few episodes and got used to the contestants a little more. As for my anticipation of a second season, I’m don’t really have a preference whether there is one but I’d probably watch it anyways if it happens. Once in a while, guilty pleasure can be good, right?

Opinion Battles Round 23 – Favourite Guilty Pleasure

Round 23 of Opinion Battles is here! This time, its all about our favorite guilty pleasure. I have so many that it was kind of hard to decide but Sharknado was the first to pop in my head! I just love it for all its badness! Seems like someone else agrees with me, which is awesome. Some great picks that you should check out.
Head over to see what everyone else chose and drop a vote on who you agree with most!

Movie Reviews 101

Opinion Battles Round 23

Favourite Guilty Pleasure

We all have that one film that people slam that we all love to watch for our own pleasure and that is what we are going to be looking at this time around.

If you want to take part in the next round we are going to look at European Subtitles film and you will need your entries sent to moviereviews101@yahoo.co.uk by 27^th November 2016.

Darren – Movie Reviews 101

Speed Racer

I do love playing racing games, well I did when I was growing up as we get plenty of racing action that is way over the top and actually feels like a video game, I never saw the anime so anything the film did wrong in honouring the show I didn’t lose. The characters are clearly fictional and the race scenes are at times breath-taking set pieces with the final…

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