Victoria
Or The Young Victoria the extended cut or The Short Victoria. Or, never mind my plans, ITV has declared the end of summer with some prestige costume drama.
Episode 1: Doll 123
In a word, sumptuous. Big budget, but although I gaped at the city views, perhaps they were more expressionistic than anything else. Anyway, my graps of the period of history is patchy, so my first impression is it’s fun to have several hours to delve into it.
Actors have Shakespeare, actresses have Queens. I didn’t know Jenna Coleman from anything (apart from one interview before Clara’s stint in Doctor Who had started airing and she seemed, um, an innocent about the kind of fannishness the show attracted) but she can carry a close-up and was pretty good as the girl-Queen. I believe Rufus Sewell had got sick of period dramas a dozen years ago, but I’m glad he accepted this part because he was note perfect, and you’d want him in a period drama if you could have him, wouldn’t you? A few other familiar faces and lots of women, and, because this it ITV (and I’m thinking of The Palace as much as Downton) we got a little downstairs action, with a new dresser as our entry into the in-it-for-themselves royal household. I didn’t quite expect so much of Victoria to be about gloves and candles, but there it was.
The big focus, of course, is on the girl whose mother let her adviser bully her, cosseted and undermined, who was destined to be Queen. And determined to be Queen. They made an excellent job on humanising Drina who would become Victoria, fount of the loaded adjective Victorian that would influence so much of what came after. Apart from the theme of serving, there was this girl who loved her dead father and her governess, who would have loved her mother, OBVIOUSLY responding better to Lord Melbourne’s flattery and kindness than being continually demeaned. I thought it was clear that her mistaken attack on Lady Flora came from the frustrated daughter.
Some things were overdone - the corresponding moments where Victoria and Lord M were staring at themselves in the mirror having been advised about what was being gossiped. The doll being put away at the end of the episode I could live with, given that it was the episode title and if they had to have a symbol of Victoria’s growth, well, there it was.
Episode 2. Ladies in Waiting
Even after the recap, a few things from the previous episode were reiterated in case we’d forgotten them. Victoria’s mama still hasn’t learned that belittling her daughter isn’t going to get her onside. Firth got to pull some classic sour faces as Cumberland tried to destabalise his niece and her Lord M while Victoria continued to be young missish (scratch what I said about growth at the end of the last episode), not knowing that there were rats in Buckingham Palace. Now, as per the last episode, this appeared to be downstairs business, but it turned out to have plot ramifications. And possibly romance downstairs between Skerrit and a moustache. There was a touch of the Anna and Mary about Skerrit and Victoria, which I think was intentional.
I am presuming that there is some basis in historical fact for making Penge so corrupt.
And I am presuming Victoria hadn’t read Sense and Sensibility at this point in her life, because she was indulging in being Marianne, and thus failing at the Constitution 101 (although if Melbourne had suggested half-and-half ladies in waiting in the first place...so he could get off his high horse called Duty). Meanwhile Victoria’s mama still hasn’t learned that the formula ‘Sir John and I’ isn’t going to get her onside.
Then Victoria tried plotting, using politics for personal reasons, (dangerous - did the Baroness skip over history?) - although her seeing her ladies in waiting as friends and any replacements as potential spies made sense. Cumberland’s plotting was blunter than he pretended it was and surely, if another monarch had been found mad, people might start looking askance at the line in those days. For a millisecond, Victoria’s mother’s maternal instincts woke up, until Sir John quoshed them. Actually, towards the end of the episode, the Duchess of Kent’s motivations were a bit contradictory from scene to scene. Wellington came out of it well.
Chef Moustache found out Anna, I mean Skerrit’s mysterious secret.
I enjoyed looking at the posh buildings and rumpled!Rufus Sewell.
The choir over the credits reminds me, in a good way, of Home Fires.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/250851.html.
Episode 1: Doll 123
In a word, sumptuous. Big budget, but although I gaped at the city views, perhaps they were more expressionistic than anything else. Anyway, my graps of the period of history is patchy, so my first impression is it’s fun to have several hours to delve into it.
Actors have Shakespeare, actresses have Queens. I didn’t know Jenna Coleman from anything (apart from one interview before Clara’s stint in Doctor Who had started airing and she seemed, um, an innocent about the kind of fannishness the show attracted) but she can carry a close-up and was pretty good as the girl-Queen. I believe Rufus Sewell had got sick of period dramas a dozen years ago, but I’m glad he accepted this part because he was note perfect, and you’d want him in a period drama if you could have him, wouldn’t you? A few other familiar faces and lots of women, and, because this it ITV (and I’m thinking of The Palace as much as Downton) we got a little downstairs action, with a new dresser as our entry into the in-it-for-themselves royal household. I didn’t quite expect so much of Victoria to be about gloves and candles, but there it was.
The big focus, of course, is on the girl whose mother let her adviser bully her, cosseted and undermined, who was destined to be Queen. And determined to be Queen. They made an excellent job on humanising Drina who would become Victoria, fount of the loaded adjective Victorian that would influence so much of what came after. Apart from the theme of serving, there was this girl who loved her dead father and her governess, who would have loved her mother, OBVIOUSLY responding better to Lord Melbourne’s flattery and kindness than being continually demeaned. I thought it was clear that her mistaken attack on Lady Flora came from the frustrated daughter.
Some things were overdone - the corresponding moments where Victoria and Lord M were staring at themselves in the mirror having been advised about what was being gossiped. The doll being put away at the end of the episode I could live with, given that it was the episode title and if they had to have a symbol of Victoria’s growth, well, there it was.
Episode 2. Ladies in Waiting
Even after the recap, a few things from the previous episode were reiterated in case we’d forgotten them. Victoria’s mama still hasn’t learned that belittling her daughter isn’t going to get her onside. Firth got to pull some classic sour faces as Cumberland tried to destabalise his niece and her Lord M while Victoria continued to be young missish (scratch what I said about growth at the end of the last episode), not knowing that there were rats in Buckingham Palace. Now, as per the last episode, this appeared to be downstairs business, but it turned out to have plot ramifications. And possibly romance downstairs between Skerrit and a moustache. There was a touch of the Anna and Mary about Skerrit and Victoria, which I think was intentional.
I am presuming that there is some basis in historical fact for making Penge so corrupt.
And I am presuming Victoria hadn’t read Sense and Sensibility at this point in her life, because she was indulging in being Marianne, and thus failing at the Constitution 101 (although if Melbourne had suggested half-and-half ladies in waiting in the first place...so he could get off his high horse called Duty). Meanwhile Victoria’s mama still hasn’t learned that the formula ‘Sir John and I’ isn’t going to get her onside.
Then Victoria tried plotting, using politics for personal reasons, (dangerous - did the Baroness skip over history?) - although her seeing her ladies in waiting as friends and any replacements as potential spies made sense. Cumberland’s plotting was blunter than he pretended it was and surely, if another monarch had been found mad, people might start looking askance at the line in those days. For a millisecond, Victoria’s mother’s maternal instincts woke up, until Sir John quoshed them. Actually, towards the end of the episode, the Duchess of Kent’s motivations were a bit contradictory from scene to scene. Wellington came out of it well.
Chef Moustache found out Anna, I mean Skerrit’s mysterious secret.
I enjoyed looking at the posh buildings and rumpled!Rufus Sewell.
The choir over the credits reminds me, in a good way, of Home Fires.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/250851.html.