Victoria is light and fluffy and low-stakes enough to make Downton Abbey look like Breaking Bad, and there's really no compelling reason to watch it. Jenna Coleman is charming (and just way too attractive to play Queen Victoria, come on now) and the guy playing her husband-cousin Prince Albert is humorously German enough, but this is just complete popcorn television, a hilariously over-exaggerated version of history and something I'm positive I've only stuck with for two seasons now because it airs in the dead-ass middle of winter here in America.
Still - I like it! It'll never so much as sniff the top half of my year-end rankings, but it's such an easy show to give half of my attention for eight hours a year. I've already made the Downton Abbey comparison, but another easy one is to The Crown - The Crown is nearly objectively a bigger, better, stronger show, but it's also got this completely stiff upper lip (like Queen Elizabeth herself, no?) while Victoria spends entire trivial episodes on, like, getting a makeover in France, or getting lost in the woods in Scotland.
I guess what I'm saying is that it's refreshingly low-stakes - even when it touches on assassination attempts and potato famines - far more memorable for its depictions of King Charles Spaniels and Albert loving Christmas trees.
What's the term for this, again? "Feel good" television? Just doesn't seem like there'd be an intersection between "trivial fun TV" and "British monarchy period drama," but, hey, here we are.
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