Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story offers a tantalizing glimpse into the lives of the political players who shape Bridgerton’s world, with a 30-year-old movie demonstrating how their stories can be continued. Queen Charlotte was, in many ways, an example of how to create a prequel series to a popular TV show. Centering on otherwise supporting characters like Queen Charlotte herself and Lady Danbury, the story was a beautifully detailed evocation of the early years of Charlotte’s reign. However, such was the story’s success that many fans are eager for more content focusing on these characters – with one movie providing the perfect template.
Using an ingenious split timeline, Queen Charlotte explores the monarch’s struggles in the present to secure a future for her dynasty, while also delving back into the past to reveal more of her history with her husband, George. In the process, the show reveals how the pressures of power can manifest, and some of the tragedies that shape Charlotte’s haughty yet fragile Bridgerton character. And yet, despite the show’s many revelations, some questions remain unanswered. Fortunately, should producers wish to delve back into Charlotte’s story in more detail, a movie that demonstrates the best approach.
The Madness Of King George Is The Perfect Queen Charlotte Sequel
The Movie Was Critically Acclaimed On Release
Released in 1994, The Madness of Queen George is in many ways the original version of Bridgerton’s story. Although it features none of the show’s original characters or colorblind casting, it does provide a missing piece of the Bridgerton jigsaw, addressing what happened to the show’s mysterious monarch, King George III. As a result of this focus, the movie is not only a fascinating companion piece to the main Bridgerton series, but also an inadvertent sequel to the Queen Charlotte spinoff.
Whereas much of Queen Charlotte’s action revolves around the early years of George and Charlotte’s marriage, The Madness of King George centers on a period not covered by either Queen Charlotte or Bridgerton. Set during the Regency Crisis of 1788-89, the movie is a powerful exploration of the king’s crippling and mysterious condition – now believed by many scholars to have been porphyria. As in Queen Charlotte, George III and Charlotte are major characters in the movie. However, because of its setting (nearly 20 years after the show and before Bridgerton) it arguably traces the perfect story outline for the next Bridgerton spinoff to follow.
The Madness Of King George Explores Charlotte And George’s Relationship In Greater Detail
It Builds On Queen Charlotte’s Biggest Strengths
One of the most successful aspects of Queen Charlotte was the way the show used the heartache Charlotte experienced to reveal more about the character audiences were already familiar with from Bridgerton. As the story unfolded, it became clear that her pain at George’s suffering made it necessary for her to put up walls preventing anyone from getting too close – even her own children. This excavation of Charlotte and George’s relationship therefore enhances the whole of the Bridgerton franchise.
The Madness of King George provides even more details on this front. Although Queen Charlotte didn’t shy away from revealing how George III’s health problems had huge ramifications – both personally and politically – the movie is even more uncompromising. The story reveals how George’s condition is not only Charlotte (in this instance played by an Oscar-nominated Helen Mirren) but also their children – particularly the Prince Regent.
Just as in Queen Charlotte, Charlotte and George’s relationship is pivotal to The Madness of King George. However, the focus on the Regency Crisis, and how Prince George came to become regent after his father’s incapacitation, reveals new depths to their dynamic. One particularly heartbreaking scene even reveals that the Prince Regent was behind some of George III’s most draconian treatments, forcibly separating his mother and father so that he might assume power. It’s a storyline that provides a completely new perspective on the characters in Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte – something another spinoff could repeat.
