Victoria — series 3, episode 1
★★★
There was a dramatic climax to an otherwise low key opener as ITV’s royal epic returned for its third series tonight.
One minute Queen Victoria was relaxing by a window watching some Chartists demonstrating at the palace gates.
Well, even the royal family didn’t have tellies in those days so I guess her entertainment choices were watching the mob or playing charades in the drawing room.
Sadly her fun was rudely interrupted when a brick came through the very same window.
No, I don’t know how the thrower managed to lob it so far either.
If it was that easy to land a missile the royals would never come out on that balcony.
Anyway, the shock caused Victoria’s waters to break – yes, of course she was pregnant again — leaving a double cliff hanger: Was Victoria’s latest baby going to be okay and was the queen about to be overthrown by revolutionaries?
Admittedly the second part won’t have been much of a cliff hanger for anyone familiar with British history given that it was 1848 — a full half century before her reign ended.
You take your drama where you can with this series though.
To be honest, it lost me back in the first series when I realised Victoria wasn’t going to have an affair with Lord Melbourne (Rufus Sewell).
Whether this series can reel me back in will depend on how much screen time Laurence Fox is given.
His Alan B’Stard-like Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston was the best thing to happen to this show in years.
The only other entertainment was working out how much longer Jenna Coleman, 32, can possibly get away with playing the lead role.
At this rate, by the end of series four she’ll be a widowed mum of eight in her mid-forties.
No one’s that good an actress.
- Victoria, Sundays at 9pm, ITV
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