Wednesday night I had such anxiety and I couldn’t pin point why. I was tossing and turning in my sleep, needed to wake up at 2 AM to grab my weighted blanket and overall just felt restless. At 6 AM, I finally succumbed to my un-tired eyes and turned on Netflix. Just four hours later, well into my work day, did I finish binging and was sobbing uncontrollably.
I was overcome with emotion, with love for the season — especially the ending. I felt immense gratitude for seeing someone who looks like me on screen, for Penelope finding her voice and taking a stand…for a man like Colin who admitted when he was wrong and stuck up for the woman he loved.
I didn’t know how I was going to get through a day of work with my thoughts consumed of regency era romance.
However, all of that came crashing down though, as soon as I logged onto social media. I was hit with a wave of opinions that didn’t mirror my own feelings and I started to question myself. Was I not watching the same show? What did I miss? Why is everyone so angry?
Then, I got into the weeds more, started to chat on Threads about Bridgerton Season 4 not coming for another 2 years and people attacked me — accusing me of wanting unethical working conditions for the crew and being happy with mundane, crappy television. Ultimately I ended up deleting the Thread and muting a few people because no, that’s not what I was saying but there is no nuance on social media…and I don’t ever think it’s coming to show up.
People have a lot of strong opinions on Bridgerton and the adaptation that was at work this season. I only started reading the books after watching Season 1 so I don’t have a very strong emotional attachment to them but generally, I’m pro-book. I love seeing adaptations come to life and while I know that changes must be made I usually want things to stay the same.
You spend so much of your life reading a book, loving a book so when it comes to life on screen it’s really hard to grapple with the fact that it might not be what you imagined in your head. I think if you’re not a reader, you won’t really understand how heartbreaking it is to have a story you loved, ripped away from you in actionable form.
Yes, we can still read the book but it’s different than seeing it come on screen. When something becomes so widely available and loved, as Bridgerton has, it almost makes the books feels obsolete which is also hard to come to terms with.
Readers and watchers are mad about Colin and Penelope not getting enough screen time together, about too many stories going on at once, about the switch from Michael to Michaela for Francesca’s book, and ultimately it all comes down to the show runner of Bridgerton who was new this season.
When it comes to a show as beloved as Bridgerton, that has a notable name and production company behind it (Shonda Rhimes/Shondaland), it’s easy to place blame and it’s easy to recognize when something changes. It happened on Grey’s Anatomy quite a bit…you could see the shift in writing, pace, storyline and casting when new people took the reigns. It was frustrating then and it was frustrating now. Sometimes I wish Shonda Rhimes could just control everything.
Then, there’s more discourse around the fact that Julia Quinn gave up complete creative control and didn’t tie in the fact that every sibling’s love interests stayed the same. How could she just let her characters go like that?
As there always is on social media, the opinions are just running wild and I can’t stay away from them…because I’m addicted to social media.
I constantly need to know what everyone else is thinking and see who is agreeing with me, who is validating my feelings and what things can I learn from others who are thinking differently from me. However, I think there is some toxicity in that because then it starts to shift my opinion, it starts to make me feel bad, it makes me feel like I’m missing something. If my opinion isn’t the popular one, if I feel like I really enjoyed the season, what does that say about me? Why does that even matter? Why is it a thought that crosses my mind?
It’s a little sickening if you think about…I’m questioning if I liked something because other people on the internet are saying they didn’t.
Yes, I’m upset that we didn’t get so much Polin, and that his love confession wasn’t in the book but it didn’t ruin it for me. Yes, I’m irritated that it didn’t flow as nicely as the other seasons, and that there were too many stories going on, but I also understand adaptations are not remakes. Not everything from the books can end up on screen.
There is nuance here and two things can be true at once; I am upset that they’re changing Francesca’s story, I’m pissed that there’s a new showrunner, I’m annoyed that there wasn’t so much Polin. However, I also really enjoyed some of the changes they made — I loved how Portia Featherington was involved in the Whistledown scheme, I loved that Pen was the one who announced herself vs Colin, and their stormy engagement.
When it comes to art of all kinds, I am very passionate — I always have been and it’s becoming increasingly more difficult for me to understand that other people’s opinions do not have to take away from something I love and enjoy.
Social media is quite literally my livelihood but sometimes I wish I could just log off forever. Sometimes I wish I could just enjoy the art without being obsessed with it, without having to look online and see other people trashing it.