The second season of Bridgerton took just one week to rank number 1 among the favorite series of the public on Netflix, with more than 193 million hours of viewing, four times more than the second place, which corresponds to Is It Cake? He even raised the first season again, which exceeded 32 million hours seen in the same time.
If you are among those who devoured every episode of the love triangle between Anthony (Jonathan Bailey), his fiancée Edwina (bCharithra Chandran) and her older sister, Kate (Simone Ashley), these titles can help you fill the gap left by the Bridgertons until the next season of the series based on the Julia Quinn series.
The Gilded Age - HBO Max
The Gilded Age is the latest production by Downton Abbey creator Julian Mr. Fellowes. This period drama is set in New York in 1882, at a very particular time: the parenthesis that formed the years of Reconstruction, after the Civil War, and the reinstatement of racism with segregationism. These are times of unprecedented economic and demographic transformation. Great fortunes are made overnight in new areas of industry expansion, on railways, by speculation on the stock market or by the gold rush. Poverty is also massive, due to intense inequality.
But the conflict is not between the poor and the rich, but between the rich and the new rich: George Russel (Morgan Spector), a railroad millionaire, and his wife, Bertha (Carrie Coon), build a mansion on Fifth Avenue to the fright of their neighbors, the sisters Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and Ada Brook ( Cynthia Nixon), people from high society “from before”, as they say.
The narrative perspective is the eyes of Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson), niece of the sisters who arrives at the New York house from Pennsylvania after her father's death. And also that of her contemporary Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), who later returns to Brooklyn after studying at university and will be hired as a secretary, something that all the staff rejects — except the butler Bannister (Simon Jones) — because the young woman is African-American.
Outlander - Star+
Based on the series of novels by Diana Gabaldon, Outlander is the story of Claire Beauchamp (Caitriona Balfe) and her two loves: Frank Randall (Tobias Menzies) in 1945 and, after a mysterious journey through time, Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) in 1743. This World War II nurse finds 200 years earlier than she thought her time a completely unknown, hostile and dangerous world. When she is forced to marry the young Scottish warrior Jamie, she will also find love: her life is thus torn apart in two eras and two men.
The series created by Ronald D. Moore has six seasons and will have a prequel, as announced by the author of the “Outsider” saga, who anticipated that she is writing the story of Jamie Fraser's parents.
Downton Abbey - Prime Video
Downton Abbey is perhaps the main success of period dramas. This British television series ended in 2015 and had two film sequels: Downton Abbey and Downton Abbey: A New Era, which will be released in May. With its structure “upstairs, downstairs”, it follows the life of the aristocratic Crawleys and their domestic staff at the beginning of the 20th century. Different news of the moment reaches the Yorkshire country house and marks the seasons, such as the sinking of the Titanic, the beginning of World War I and the Spanish flu.
Its renowned cast includes Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Brown-Findlay, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Michelle Dockery, Siobhan Finneran, Matthew Goode and Lily James, among others. They play Lord Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, who manages family wealth; Matthew Crawley, a distant cousin, lawyer from Manchester, and Lord Robert's dominant mother, Violet, the widowed countess of Grantham, on the top floor. On the bottom, butler Charles Carson and housekeeper Elsie Hughes.
Harlots: Cortesanas - Star+
Set in the 17th century, which receives an ambitious recreation, the series created by Alison Newman and Moira Buffini tells the story of a mother, Margaret Wells, who raises her two daughters while managing her brothel. Based on Hallie Rubenhold's novel The Covent Garden Ladies, over the course of three seasons Harlots: Courtesans represented a lesser explored side of English history: an era when one in five women earned a living as a worker sexual.
Samantha Morton is Madame Margaret Wells, a former sex worker of Lydia Quigley, who is now her ruthless competitor, a character played by Lesley Manville. Margaret's daughters, whose virginity is auctioned in the family business, are Jessica Brown-Findlay (Charlotte Wells) and Eloise Smyth (Lucy Wells). Dorothy Atkinson, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Alexa Davies, Rory Fleck Byrne and bLiv Tyler are joined in the rivalry between the two brothels, which compete to be chosen in London's high society during the 17th century.
Gentleman Jack - HBO Max
It is 1832 and the daring British landowner and industrialist Anne Lister returns to Shibden Hall, the family property in Yorkshire, ready to change it at all costs and even if her strong personality disturbed people clinging to the social demands of the time. Gentleman Jack is based on a true story and is told according to the contents of the diaries of Lister, an LGBTQ pioneer, written in code because they documented her romantic relationships with other women.
Directed by Sally Wainwright (Last Tango in Halifax and Happy Valley), the series that just released its second season stars Suranne Jones as Lister, Sophie Rundle as her partner, Timothy West, Joe Armstrong, Amelia Bullmore, Rosie Cavaliero, Gemma Whelan and Gemma Jones.
The Great - Prime Video
This dramatic comedy about Catherine the Great, which takes many licenses with regard to historical events but manages to create a sharp and humorous story, while at the same time sufficiently similar to the life of the woman who married Emperor Peter. Set in the younger years of Catherine, who would become the longest-standing empress in power throughout Russian history, The Great details her husband's eccentricities and her plan to assassinate him.
Over the course of two seasons of 10 episodes each, Elle Fanning, Nicholas Hoult and Phoebe Fox gave life to the main characters in this Tony McNamara creation. The cast that accompanied them included Sacha Dhawan, Charity Wakefield, Gwilym Lee, Adam Godley, Douglas Hodge, Belinda Bromilow, Bayo Gbadamosi, and Sebastian de Souza. There is no release date yet for the third season, which was already signed.
Dickinson - Apple TV+
Another intelligent comedy, in this case about the American poet Emily Dickinson, about which little is known from the hypotheses of historians and academics. Lavinia, Emily's sister, kept a trunk full of poems and correspondence, against the express request of the writer, who wanted everything to be burned to death. Created by Alena Smith, it explores in three seasons the personal relationships behind exquisite poetic art.
Dickinson tells three stages of his life in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he was born, grew up and died, never married. The series highlights the affection he felt for Susan Gilbert, his best friend and fiancée of his brother, the Susie of his poems, and immerses the audience in the world that Emily created purely from within, without ever really getting to know him with her own eyes. Hailee Steinfeld is the poet, Ella Hunt is Sue Gilbert, Anna Baryshnikov is Lavinia and Toby Huss is the father, Edward Dickinson. The main cast is completed by Adrian Enscoe, Jane Krakowski, Amanda Warren and Chinaza Uche.
The Crown - Netflix
The series about Queen Elizabeth II and her family, which Peter Morgan created from his film The Queen, has been at the center of numerous controversies throughout its four seasons, to such an extent that the British government at one time requested — without success — that producers emphasize that it is a fiction.
As time goes on, The Crown changes the cast that represents the Windsors and their surroundings. First were Claire Foy, Matt Smith, Vanessa Kirby, Victoria Hamilton and Greg Wise, as well as John Lithgow as Prime Minister Winston Churchill; after the second season came Olivia Colman, Tobias Menzies, Helena Bonham Carter, Josh O'Connor and Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher. Other actors in the series include Emma Corrin (Lady Di, center of one of the controversies), Imelda Staunton, Jonathan Pryce, Lesley Manville, Jonny Lee Miller, Dominic West, Elizabeth Debicki, Marcia Warren and Claudia Harrison.
This production, which won awards such as the Emmy and the Golden Globe, will have a fifth season at the end of 2022 and a sixth has been hired.
Victoria - Prime Video
This series tells the extraordinary life of those who reigned in England for 63 years and gave its name to an era. Victoria, daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, was crowned at the age of 18 and in her era the world map was changed. As she was also a passionate young woman, she wanted to have a personal life and defended her love for Prince Albert.
The production that aired between 2016 and 2019 featured Jenna Coleman in the starring role, Tom Hughes as Prince Albert and Rufus Sewell as Prime Minister Lord Melbourne. The plot was based on the diaries of Queen Victoria, published during her lifetime and after her death in 1901, 122 volumes that are now kept in the Royal Archives.
This creation by Daisy Goodwin had 24 episodes and was produced by Rebecca Eaton and Damien Timmer.
The Castamar Cook - Netflix
Palatial intrigues and romance in 18th century Spain, in the imaginary story of a cook, Clara, who falls in love with a nobleman, Duke Don Diego. Based on the novel by Fernando J. Múñez, La cocinera de Castamar presents this impossible love after both protagonists have suffered traumatic losses: Diego has just been widowed and Clara suffers from agoraphobia after her father's execution.
Also in the style “upstairs, downstairs”, this story takes place inside the Castamar palace: don Diego and his mother live on the upper floor, while on the lower floor his domestic staff live. Sexuality and parallel plots increase the tension of this Spanish series starring Michelle Jenner (Clara), Roberto Enríquez (Diego), Fiorella Faltoyano, Hugo Silva, Maxi Iglesias, María Hervás and Agnés Llobet.
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