Victoria, Season 1: Four Episode Challenge

“I know that I am young but I am ready for the great responsibility that lies before me.”

The Show: ‘Victoria’

The Network: PBS

The Genre: Historical Drama

The Challenge: Give a show four episodes with which to hook you, make you fall in love, throw things at the television (…just me?), gasp, and otherwise interact with your television in appropriate (and maybe not so appropriate) ways. Four episodes for the chance to find out if you care what happens to the characters you’re watching enough to become invested in the story. If after all that, it does none of those things for you? Dump it. It was only four hours of your life so you’re fine. You gave it the old college try and it just wasn’t for you. But if you’re hooked, you’re in it for the long haul.

The Premise: ‘Victoria’ focuses on the 18-year-old Victoria, right after her uncle dies leaving her the heir to the British crown. Her relationship with her mother is strained and made worse by her controlling advisor. She’s infatuated with her country’s much older Prime Minister Lord Melbourne and in the middle of this the pressure on her to marry is enormous. Enter Victoria’s first cousin, Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coberg. Mix in some corsets, horses, and some downstairs drama a la Downton Abbey and you’ve got Victoria in a nutshell. Victoria stars Jenna Coleman, Daniela Holtz, Adrian Schiller, Catherine Flemming, Tommy Knight, Margaret Clunie, Eve Myles, Nell Hudson, Anna Wilson-Jones, Ferdinand Kingsley, Jordan Waller, Tom Hughes, Nigel Lindsay, Rufus Sewell, David Oakes, Peter Bowles, Alex Jennings, Paul Rhys, and Peter Firth.

There’s a glut of historical royalty dramas out there- and this one is so damn pretty you need to see it to believe it

Look let’s be real: There’s a lot on television right now. You’ve got your pick of things to watch, and you can watch it any time you want. So why watch Victoria? Well, seriously there must have been some hole in your life left by Downton Abbey. That show proved that we across the pond have a fondness for ladies in period dress and we like our men with accents, too. The production values on this show are really tip top.

The first four episodes go into great detail on the life of a very young, impressionable queen and the pitfalls she negotiates as she faces pressure from her family, her advisors, her government and her people. Of course there’s a love triangle between Victoria, her prime minister Lord Melbourne and her first cousin (you’ll just have to get over it, it grossed us out at first too) Prince Albert.

But Victoria doesn’t just focus on the rich and powerful royals like that other royal Netflix drama we reviewed. They’ve got some time for the downstairs story, too. Unfortunately for Downton fans, that’s where the similarity to Downton stops. In Downton the below stairs drama was compelling and worked well. In Victoria? Stay tuned.

Bring on the locations, locations, locations. Who else is turned on by furniture and crinolines?

Victoria has used CGI sparingly (thank goodness). It is used, and they don’t attempt to hide they use it. But the show isn’t one endless parade of CGI’d nonsense. Exquisite attention to detail was paid for every detail of those sets. When the show wasn’t using an empty Royal Air Force hanger in Yorkshire for filming, Harewood House in Leeds was decked out to look like either Buckingham Palace (which Victoria made the main royal residence) or Kensington Palace. We never for one moment doubt that they’re anything other than exactly what they purport to be. The opulence is breathtaking. It should be- the first 8 episodes apparently cost about £10 million!

But where the team really outdoes themselves is on the costumes. The show is a fashion parade from beginning to end. We mostly know Queen Victoria for wearing black for the majority of her life after Prince Albert’s death & setting the standard for mourning for basically forever. However the young Victoria was rather fond of clothes and fashion. The parade of lavish costumes draped on Jenna Coleman is truly astounding. Any costumed drama addict will be drooling the moment she appears on screen! Come on, tell us. Which was your favorite gown?

The ‘downstairs’ drama in Victoria is just about as exciting as the life of a Victorian servant was. That is, not at all.

If there’s one misstep that Victoria takes, it’s the below stairs drama. We get that that sort of upstairs/downstairs drama was pretty great in some other shows and can provide a huge conflict. Here it’s just not that great. It’s a script malfunction; not the actors’. Nell Hudson in particular does a fine job as Skerrett, the dresser with a past.

And over the four episodes, the below-stairs drama did get slightly more interesting. Overall it was just a bit of a snooze. There didn’t really seem to be very high stakes for the servants beyond whether or not they’d be caught re-selling candles. Skerrett is moderately interesting but even the news she came from a nunnery (a slang term for a whorehouse) wasn’t enough to save it from the depths of a snooze-fest. It’s the only blot on an otherwise compelling show. It should be noted that this little detail is a slight bend in the truth. The real Skerrett was above reproach and served Victoria faithfully until her retirement. They remained friends even after that.

Secondary political drama fares much better. Queen Victoria’s contentious relationship with her mother and her advisor is scintillating. the writing is surprisingly compelling on that front. Kudos to first time creator Daisy Goodwin for making what really could be quite dull and turning up the volume. We’re well aware that some historians have criticized the show for bending historic details. Evidence suggests Victoria never had anything more than fond paternal feelings towards her Prime Minister Lord Melbourne. But we think it provides a necessary punch to the drama and there’s enough historical detail that is correct to satisfy us.

Jenna Coleman is worth of a crown: Leading a sublime cast worthy of royals

Most readers may be familiar with Jenna Coleman from her Doctor Who fame but with Victoria, Coleman really gets a chance to spread her wings. She’s perfect as the young queen. She manages a dichotomy of being simultaneously strong yet vulnerable, spoiled yet full of humility. It would be easy given her dialogue to just fall into a trap of consistent annoyance with Victoria. She doesn’t make the the best decisions and she can be incredibly impetuous. Coleman really avoids that though. Coleman’s incredibly strong at the diminutive queen thrust into the spotlight at a young age.

Supporting Coleman is a cast that’s more than her equal. Part of that magic is that Coleman has excellent chemistry with just about everyone on screen. Rufus Sewell is divine as the paternal Lord Melbourne. Everyone knows Victoria marries Albert. When we’re staring at the screen willing Lord M to make a move, forget historical accuracy! We nearly cried in frustration. And the scenes where Lord M tells Victoria he isn’t for her and steers her elsewhere were utterly heartbreaking. But Melbourne guides Victoria right where she belongs- to the other part of our love triangle, Tom Hughes as Albert. At first we weren’t sure about Hughes, but by the end of episode 4, we bought it. It helps that the chemistry between Coleman and Hughes almost melted our television screens. Albert and Victoria’s proposal scene?! PASS THE SMELLING SALTS IMMEDIATELY!

Further kudos go to Catherine Flemming as Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent. She does a fine job as the aggrieved mother of an angry, powerful teen who resents her much. Various other Lords and the Prime Minister of the time, who were not always pleased with the headstrong Victoria, round out the cast and populate the world of the show with believability (with a few exceptions of course, but we’ll forgive those).

Final Verdict: Victoria is a worthy addition to the glut of wonderful period costume dramas. Great acting, wonderful cast chemistry and sumptuous production values make it a confection you won’t want to stop eating.

Daisy Goodwin’s adaptation of her own novel Victoria is a strong outing for her. She’s served her story well. We don’t have any quibbles with some slight over dramatization and stretching of the truth with regards to history. We haven’t read the book, though, so we aren’t sure if she’s a slave to it or not.

We hope the ‘downstairs’ storyline picks up, but not because it’s terrible, really only because it’s kind of boring and we’re looking for a bit more excitement. What would make this better? We’d like to see more than just hints of servants bickering, and maybe about their lives and not about candles. Where’s scheming Thomas when you need him? Maybe a little romance between them! What about a love triangle between one of Albert’s servants, Skerrett and the cook. Nothing blows our petticoats up like some men fighting over a lady. Any scenes with Victoria herself sizzle with heat because of Jenna Coleman’s intense chemistry with every single other cast member. The show needs to pick it up when she’s not the focus.

The best part of the show is unquestioningly the splendor of the production values. Top to bottom the production on the show is great. The lush landscapes of Victorian England never looked so appealing. When can we go back? Huge credit here goes to series production designer Michael Howells, set decorator Tanya Bowd and cinematographer John Lee and their respective teams. It doesn’t really feel like they could be doing one thing better than they already are.

Questions & Comments:

• What’s the deal with British politics? This whole “choosing the prime minister” plus Parliament can dictate what the Queen does? Crazy talk!
• We know colonialism expanded during the Victorian era and we’re kind of interested in seeing what role the Queen played in it (if at all). We hope they touch on that going forward.
• Did anyone else want to wear the clothes? Give me a corset and some petticoats. And that crown. I want it real bad.