Now in its third season, Bridgerton is back to illuminate our screens with lavish tales of social class, love, and life in London’s high society during the Regency Era which spanned from 1811 – 1820. The showrunning duties have been assigned to long-time collaborator Jess Brownell who has written for the show since Season 1. From sumptuous ballrooms to quaint walks in the park, there are friends and rivals alike in the current season to keep the characters on shaky ground.
Brownell spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine about the appeal of the show and breathing freshness and longevity into the series.
“I think what really makes Bridgerton stand out is the fact that it has this modern sensibility and we are pushing the escapism. I think the romance is really landing with people right now,” says Jess.
“What’s also really unique about the show is that you get to switch from couple to couple every season and explore so many different types of love.” This approach is in contrast to other shows which may track one couple getting together, possibly breaking up, and getting back together again.
Jess Brownell
Jess Brownell has worked on the show since its inception with Chris Van Dusen, so she’s fully aware of its world and lore. Fortunately, the original intention for the show aligns with her own sensibilities so she could seamlessly take the reins.
“Because we shift focus every season to a different couple, you have the opportunity to move into a slightly different tonal place. And with Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) and Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) this season, it made a lot of sense with the ‘friends to lovers’ story to play with romcom tropes a lot more,” she continues. Colin mentors Penelope in the ways of confidence and self-assuredness while maturing and trying to find his own place in the world.
Seasons 1 and 2 followed Julia Quinn’s books closely, whereas Season 3 is based on the fourth book. This was very much a strategic decision according to Brownell. “It felt like we’d been watching Colin and Penelope for multiple seasons. We’d fallen in love with them. They had a certain dynamic where Colin never quite realized that Penelope had feelings for him. I felt if we tried to drag that out for another season, it might grow frustrating. It felt like the right time to send their relationship in a different direction.”
The third book in the series focuses on the rebellious Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) and opens up the world in many new and exciting ways. Brownell decided that it was too early in the lifespan of the series to change the setting on the show in a major way.
So, she settled on Romancing Mister Bridgerton (Book 4). This provided an opportunity to “push that [the Colin and Penelope story] out a bit,” continues Brownell.
A Tale Of Two Times
Bridgerton retains the timbre of eighteenth century London and infuses it with modern cultural sensibilities.
“In terms of Bridgeton specifically, the marriage mart is really a distillation of a lot of what we deal with in the dating mart today. We’re dealing with it in technology and in bars. You dance with someone if you’re interested. You ‘swipe left’ and go dance with the person next to them if you’re not.”
“I think there’s something about the simplicity of the dating mart then. While restrictive, it appeals to people because the dating mart now can be so confusing and difficult to navigate,” explains Brownell.
“Bridgeton does have somewhat modern sensibilities, but it’s not necessarily in modern day. We’re still very much in the early 1800s, but that modern sensibility in the music and some of the costume choices really are helpful. We let people relate to these characters because it’s easy to ‘other’ people from history and think that they were so stuffy and not like us.”
“But when you realize that their music was basically an Ariana Grande song with strings and they had sexual urges in the exact same way we have today, suddenly you can understand that they’re not so different from us.”
A Series In Two Halves
This season of Bridgerton is delivered in two parts – a month apart. The entire season was written and produced before Netflix suggested that it be batched into two parts, so the delivery had minimal impact on Brownell’s creative process.
Lady Portia Featherington (Polly Walker) Photo by Liam Daniel/ Netflix
“My approach to breaking a season already is in two halves. You have the midpoint where the action gets turned upside down. You resolve the first goal in a certain way and then up the stakes in the second half. So, it felt very much like Colin and Penelope’s moment at the end of Episode Four puts a close to the first chapter,” adds Jess.
“We enter a world where the tension in the back half becomes much more about Penelope’s secret double life as Lady Whistledown that she’s been hiding.” This also underscores the thematic throughline of each character having two selves – the one they show the world and the one that is private.
Previous seasons of Bridgerton explored enemies to lovers and fake relationships. This season explores friendship love. “We also have two characters who, for the first time, are underdogs. Watching an underdog make the transition from the shadows into the light brings a real new flavour to the show,” states the showrunner.
Jess Brownell describes this season of Bridgerton as being “rooted in romcom tropes. We’re leaning into the humour. There’s a sense of familiarity and coziness. I keep describing the feeling of the season as being under a warm blanket, drinking a cup of tea by the fire. It’s gentle in certain ways, but there’s still that longing and that thirst between the main characters.”
Inside The Writers’ Room
Jess Brownell ran a smaller writers’ room this season. It was composed of Jess and five other writers. They were very diverse in terms of life experience, race, and gender. “And because I had a smaller room, I was fortunate enough to be able to give two of my support staff freelance episodes. And they nailed it. For Season Four, they both joined the staff as full-time writers.”
Much of the work was done via Zoom because Jess is based in London and most of the writers are based in Los Angeles. “We work very quickly and very efficiently to make the most of the time difference.”
“We were in the writers’ room for about four hours. Then each writer is in charge of their episode and does a lot of work outside of the room to push their episode forward.”
“We initially had a twenty-four-week room and then it kept being extended as we needed more time for some episodes. Several months were added to finish the scripts. The show takes about eight months to shoot. It’s about thirty days per episode.”
“I was very involved in the first block of the season, overseeing as we set up the tone of the season, and making sure that these characters who are stepping into a new dimension of their personalities are portrayed in the right way. And from that point on, I had writers covering their episodes on set, which was wonderful to give writers that experience.”
Jess would come on set for key scenes and continued to run tone meetings during production. Each script took about two weeks to write. Notes were given, and writers did another pass which typically takes an additional week.
Brownell doesn’t recall a major disagreements in the writers’ room. Everyone was invested in telling the best version of the story. “We would have some spirited debates about which direction the storyline should go in, but I’m more interested in the show being good than me being right.”
A Writer’s Voice
“I would say that most of my work tends to be character based. I also have a difficult time writing anything that doesn’t have some comedy in it. My approach to life is to laugh at it.”
“Even on Scandal, the scenes that I was most often tasked with writing were the Huck and Quinn scenes, which were lighter-hearted, more playful scenes.”
“I would also say banter is the thing that I enjoy writing the most. I think across Scandal, Inventing Anna, and Bridgerton, banter has really been at the center of everything I’ve done.”
To conclude, we asked Jess Brownell which family she most relates to – the Bridgertons or the Featheringtons. “I guess we would all like to say that we would fit into the Bridgerton family. They’re so fun and so different in so many ways. But I don’t think they’re that dissimilar as people think.”
“I think that Lady Portia Featherington (Polly Walker) is just as loving as Lady Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell). Portia loves her children just as much as Violet. She just doesn’t know how to express it. And compassionately, I would like to think that’s probably because she didn’t have a great model. Whereas we know that Violet Bridgerton at least had a fantastic father who showed her a lot of love.”
