‘Queen Charlotte’ joins the royal family of worthy spinoffs
Spinoffs are generally created to wring more money out of a proven success, something network TV well knows as it continues to serve up offshoots of “Chicago Fire,” “FBI,” “NCIS,” and other hits. And hey, brand extension makes good business sense, which is why HBO now has a handful of “Game of Thrones” spinoffs in development, along with the already-premiered “House of the Dragon.” And it’s why Netflix has brought us the just-released “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story,” Shonda Rhimes’s prequel to her hit costume romance series.
For a long time, spinoffs were most often dismal and dismissible, and the likes of “AfterMASH” and “Joey” have become iconic for their inferiority. But we’re in a new era, it seems, and the word “spinoff ” is no longer quite as tainted as it once was thanks to shows such as “The Good Fight,” “Better Call Saul,” and “House of the Dragon.”
Now add to that list “Queen Charlotte,” which tracks the backstory of two central characters from “Bridgerton,” Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) and Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh). Like “Bridgerton,” it’s a spicy take on love and manners and poufy dresses. But unlike the mothership, it’s built around a tragedy, and it addresses the racial diversity that has so far been largely unacknowledged in the Bridger-verse.
The young Charlotte (India Amarteifio) is brought from Germany at 17 to marry Britain’s King George III (Corey Mylchreest, looking like Tom Cruise), to whom she has been sold. She’s no naif, and she suspects that, if his family needed to import a queen, George must be difficult in some way or another. No one she meets is even willing to talk about him. Turns out she’s right; George suffers from serious mental illness, and minutes after they marry he moves away — to keep his secret, to endure absurd and painful treatments from his doctor, and to protect Charlotte from his episodes. That doesn’t stop his pushy mother, Princess Augusta (Michelle Fairley), from demanding that her new daughter-in-law bear an heir to the throne, and pronto.
The twist is that George can be a lovely guy, and he and Charlotte have a warm chemistry. When they first meet, she doesn’t know who he is, and they click. But because the show is set long before we knew about mental illness, Charlotte and George are left to face something they don’t understand. The obstacle to their star-crossed love has nothing to do with the usual period-drama barriers such as social status or financial need. In “Queen Charlotte,” the problem is an interior and mysterious one, and that gives the six-episode series some poignance.
The series frames Charlotte’s presence as a Black woman in the British royalty as the start of what Parliament is calling “the great experiment.” If the marriage succeeds, it will usher in a new age of integration among the aristocracy (remember, this is all fictionalized). The show also reveals how the young Lady Danbury (Arsema Thomas), who is Black, came to become an essential member of the court, as part of the great experiment. She, too, has a complicated backstory, one that includes an illicit romance.
Throughout, the series jumps ahead to the time of “Bridgerton,” as we see the older Queen Charlotte push for an heir from one of her many children. When different actors play the same characters, it can be distracting, especially when the action is toggling between the two. But it works extraordinarily well here, thanks to smart casting. Amarteifio gives us a rebellious but also practical-minded young queen who you can easily imagine growing into the older version we already know. Likewise, Thomas gives us an early version of the shrewd, cautious woman that we can see will grow into Lady Danbury. The young actors give the characters their own stamp, but they also clearly point the way.
Obviously, if you’re not a fan of “Bridgerton,” you have no business here. “Queen Charlotte” has the same gorgeous gardens, the same string covers of pop songs, the same buoyant tone, and the same central theme: the search for love. It’s a spinoff, yes, but it’s a good one.