My experience with historical fiction is quite hit or miss. Sometimes I enjoy them, and other times I wish I could un-watch what I just saw. Bridgerton Season 2 is a perfect example of the latter while Mr. Malcolm’s List (movie) is the former.
However, more often than not, I find them to be not for me. Yes, the love confessions and sets are beautiful, but when I start to think more about actual history, especially in relation to race and capitalism, the shows, movies, and books begin to fall apart for me. Even with period dramas I like, I still think about how gross everyone likely smells.
Speaking of period dramas, one of my favourite shows is “The Gilded Age” created by Julian Fellows, who’s also known for his other works “Downtown Abbey,” “Belgravia,” and many more. Fellows has a love for writing complex characters, dynamics, and storylines that he weaves through his different projects.
While I loved “The Gilded Age” and am standing on burning coal just aching for the next season, one of his other shows, “Belgravia,” sadly didn’t make it onto my favourites list. Even more unfortunate, this show falls into my least favourites list.
“Belgravia” is a 2020 British TV mini series based on the 2016 novel of the same name, written by Julian Fellows. The show was released a few years after Fellows’s hit show “Downtown Abbey.”
This show follows a wide range of characters, and you can think of them as two families: The Trenchard and Bellassis families. The two lines are joined together when a daughter of the Trenchards falls for the son of the Bellassis’s and has a son.
Because the Trenchards don’t know if the marriage between the two young ones was legitimate, and the girl died in childbirth, they choose to send the son to be raised somewhere else and never tell him that he was adopted.
Twenty-six years pass, and in the present the boy is now a man, running his own business. His paternal grandmother takes an interest in him after being told the secret, and throughout the season, everyone dances around him, attempting to keep the secret of his life from him.
Before starting watching the show, I wasn’t aware of the premise, so, needless to say, I was extremely confused during the first two episodes. Especially because the story doesn’t follow the boy, Charles Pope, as he grows up, becomes a man, and starts running his business. If I recall correctly, he doesn’t even appear until the second episode.
Because we weren’t following Charles and instead focused on the Trenchards and Bellasis families keeping the secret from him, I didn’t feel connected to his character. He didn’t feel like the main character despite every storyline leading to his, as if he is the protagonist.
Though I was emotionally invested in the other characters, I wanted to connect more to Charles and understand how he feels about everyone suddenly taking interest in him. And I just felt like that was a missed opportunity.
To top it off, his acting wasn’t the best. I know that’s likely mean of me to say, but I don’t feel like Charles’s actor really sold his role. There were times he was meant to emote, say sadness for example, and he looked like he was more so grimacing or looking disappointed. If you watched his scenes on mute, you’d ask, “Why do you look like that?” That’s how I felt watching the show, just wondering why he was making the wrong face, or not making one at all.
And don’t even get me started on the ending to the whole storyline. The way the show ended was so fast, so convenient, and so anticlimactic, that’s the word. The entire story, that’d been building for six episodes, was wrapped up within the last fifteen minutes of the show.
I was fuming. I was audibly yelling at my TV, saying, “That’s it? He’s not mad?!” Personally, if a bunch of people I knew, who’d suddenly taken interest in me, didn’t tell me I was their grandchild, I’d be so mad when they revealed the secret to me.
And that’s what I mean when I say the ending was anticlimactic. It’s like: All this drama and for what? Nothing happened. Based on Charles’s reaction, they all could’ve told him the truth in episode two, and he’d be pretty cool with it. We didn’t need six episodes.
Okay, let me roll back the negativity train.
I didn’t hate this show by any means. I’ve watched, unfortunately, much worse than this. There were parts of the show I enjoyed, such as the grief Anne Trenchard felt after she lost her daughter, especially for so many years. I also liked the cute budding relationship between Charles and Maria Grey.
Overall, I’d give this show 2/5 stars. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever watched, and I’d recommend it to the right person. Sadly, I’m the right viewer for this show.
However, I have since started watching the spinoff of the show: “Belgravia: The Next Chapter.” I’m two episodes in, and I already like it much more than the original. I’ll likely review it once I finish watching it.
Anyways, thanks for reading my review of “Belgravia!” Have you watched this show, or any of Julian Fellows’s other shows? Did you like any of them?