As a general rule, I don’t do period dramas.  For instance, ten minutes of Downton Abbey was enough for me when I tried it once, due to having seen faster paced tortoises.  Nor has Mr Darcy ever made me go weak at the knees I’m afraid to say ladies.  Nevertheless, I was willing to try and get into Victoria when it first aired on ITV1 some eight or nine weeks ago.  ITV1 trailed it to death and I got this sense on social media that everybody else in the country was going to be watching it.

A week ago the first series came to a triumphant conclusion as we saw Queen Victoria(Jenna Coleman) give birth to her first child Victoria.  It was a fitting ending to a great series.  Nevertheless, four episodes in and I thought it had the potential to be even better than this, to be one the greatest things that I had ever seen.  As the series progressed it ran out of steam a bit and got a tad boring in places.  Once we saw Queen Victoria’s affections for Lord Melbourne(Rufus Sewell) lessen, then so did my overall interest in the drama.

At the start of the narrative we saw the young newly appointed Queen Victoria, form a strong bond with her then serving Prime Minister Lord Melbourne(aka Lord M).  Their relationship developed into this sort of forbidden love story which became intensely moving to watch.  I thought Jenna Coleman and Rufus Sewell were exceptional in the performances that they gave together.

The scene that had the most powerful impact on me was when we saw Queen Victoria pay Lord M a visit in the grounds of his Brocket Hall estate.  It was the one where she revealed to him her deep feelings of love for him.  We knew he felt the same way but he could not allow himself to say so, due to him not thinking it was morally right.  In his rejection of her and referring back to his wife that had since left him, he used this wonderful analogy with the local rooks.  For example, Lord M said to Queen Victoria, ”like a rook, I mate for life”.  This love story between them was totally engrossing, absorbing and really made for addictive viewing.

However, the problem of this love story between Queen Victoria and Lord M, was that I was that taken with it that I did not want Prince Albert(Tom Hughes) to show up like he obviously did a bit later on.  Furthermore, the narrative seemed to go from her fancying Lord M to then fancying Prince Albert.  It was all a bit too much like a soap opera for a few of the middle episodes.  I wanted to know more about Victoria’s reign in general rather than it mainly just being about her love life.  Eventually this did happen as slavery and the railways were subjects touched upon in the later episodes, but this courtship between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert was focused on for far too long.

As this was a drama rather than a documentary then of course not every narrative strand   was going to be one hundred percent truthful.  Nevertheless, it was quite surprising to read a few historians on social media being highly critical of the Queen Victoria and Lord M love story storyline.  They claimed that Queen Victoria NEVER proposed to Lord M as it depicted she did.  It was also stated how she NEVER had those type of amorous feelings for him either.

At first, it did not bother me that writer Daisy Goodwin had used some creative license regarding the relationship between Queen Victoria and Lord M.   However, as the series progressed I then found myself second guessing at what was truthful and what was not.  This as a consequence started to effect my enjoyment of the narrative because this was supposed to be an accurate drama about the life of Queen Victoria.  For instance, as I watched the final episode I wondered if the incident with the character Captain Childers(Andrew Scarborough) had actually happened, i.e him approaching her horse carriage and saying that he could rescue her from her German tyrant Prince Albert?  I also wondered if those rumours ever really existed for a time about Lord Cumberland(Peter Firth) potentially being behind an assassination attempt of Queen Victoria?

Even though I wanted Prince Albert to come down with a fatal case of scarlet fever or something so Queen Victoria could waltz off into the sunset with Lord Melbourne(I’m such an old romantic at heart), actor Tom Hughes does deserves praise for his excellent performance throughout as Prince Albert.  Another new face that I had not seen in anything else before was actress Nell Hudson who played Miss Skerrett.  She appears to be a great young talent and so expect to see her in a lot more TV shows soon.

Costume and set design were probably the most impressive things about this drama.  Victoria’s outfits for example looked both visually stunning and extremely authentic of that time.  There was also this reoccurring amazing establishing shot of a Victorian looking Buckingham Palace in every episode.  I am guessing it was done computer graphically and it looked very convincing.

Overall then, it was not perfect but there was a lot more to like about this drama than not to like.  It is such a fascinating period of our nation’s history that it deserves to be celebrated as it rightly was here.  I am pleased to see that ITV1 have recommissioned Victoria for a second series because it deserved it.  Watching this has helped me get over my phobia of period dramas, WELL FOR FOR THE TIME BEING ANYWAY! 4/5.