‘Bridgerton’ Season 3: Little Spice, But Still Very Nice

Marriage marts. Meddling mothers. Love triangles. No, this isn’t Indian Matchmaking, a saas-bahu TV serial, or Bollywood, but, of course, Bridgerton.

Spoilers ahead for those who haven’t seen Season 1 or Season 2. No spoilers for Season 3.

Dearest Reader. Bridgerton is back after two years for its third installment — namely, the first four episodes of Season 3 — and there is a very big problem. “Of the status quo, this author quickly grows weary,” sums up Lady Whistledown, a successful entrepreneur and gossip columnist whose scandal sheet always sells out. How can showrunners make the premise of someone finding a match in the marriage mart exciting when we’ve seen this formula before? This season centers Colin Bridgerton, the “C” in his name indicating he is the third youngest child in the very wealthy and very good-looking Bridgerton family, and Penelope Featherington, his neighbor, whom, unbeknownst to him, is behind his failed engagement in the prior season. In fact, Penelope — as we know by now — is Lady Whistledown, and she is powerful as hell.

Bridgerton’s magic is that it’s usually in safe hands with production company Shondaland, behind Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal. Netflix’s Regency Era drama, based on the popular romance series by Julia Quinn of the same name, is fascinating precisely because it upends our expectations of what can be. In this world, Kate Sheffield is Kathani Sharma and Queen Charlotte is Black. But Season 3 has few of those reimaginings for the lead couple, which takes away some much-needed spice, while leaving behind the uphill battle of depicting the friends-to-lovers trope with sensuality.