Gentle reader, if you have not seen the first two seasons of the Regency-era melodrama “Bridgerton,” you’ve missed some truly delightful television. Produced by Westport resident Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland, “Bridgerton” is now heavily into Season 3 with a cliffhanger concluding Part 1 – and Part 2 scheduled to commence on June 13.
Based on Julia Quinn’s novels about the eight close-knit siblings of the Bridgerton family looking for love and happiness in London’s high society, the series has brought love/passion/desire back to prime-time television – like “Gossip Girl” meets “Downton Abbey.”
Re-imaging a diverse 19th century England, it focuses on aristocratic families finding proper husbands for their ‘eligible’ daughters while seeking favor from Black royalty: “We were two separate societies, divided by color, until King George fell in love with one of us,” explained influential Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) in Season 2.
In Season 1, Simon, Duke of Hastings (Rege-Jean Page) courted Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor). In Season 2, Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) pursued Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley). Now, in Season 3, Part 1 – childhood friends/neighbors Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) acknowledge their amorous feelings for one another.
Meanwhile, when Francesca Bridgerton (Hannah Dodd) makes her debut, her “sparkle’ is acknowledged by scheming Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) and her widowed mother Violet (Ruth Gemmell) finds an ardent admirer in Lady Danbury’s estranged brother, Lord Marcus Anderson (Daniel Francis).
Plus there’s a recurring character, Will Mondritch (Martins Imhangbe), inspired by the most famous Black boxer of the time, Bill Richmond. Mondrich has retired from boxing, opened a gentlemen’s club and become the father of a Baron.
All of this bodice-ripping drama is chronicled by the cunning, scandal-mongering, anonymous gossiper known as Lady Whistledown (voiced by Julie Andrews).
“Bridgerton” has been renewed through Season 4 but plans are to adapt every book in Julia Quinn’s series for a total of eight seasons.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Bridgerton: Season 3, Part 1” is a spicy, steamy 7 – with four episodes now available to binge-watch on Netflix.
Jennifer Lopez stars in “Atlas,” an ambitious sci-fi action adventure about the potential dangers of A.I.
She’s Atlas Shepherd, whose robotics expert mother (Lana Perilla) created and unleashed Harlan (Simu Liu), an A.I. terrorist who has killed millions and threatened humanity with extinction before taking off into outer space.
Skip ahead 28 years. Now a highly respected but “rigid and hostile” counterterrorism data analyst, Atlas is summoned by Gen. Jake Boothe (Mark Strong) when the I.C.N. (International Coalition of Nations) captures Casca Vix (Abraham Popoola), an A.I. bot connected to Harlan.
After analyzing the bot’s brain, Atlas – who grew up with Harlan as part of her family – deduces that he is hiding on GR-39, a distant planet in the Andromeda Galaxy.
Determined to capture him alive for questioning, she boards a spacecraft filled with Special Forces rangers commanded by Col. Elias Banks (Sterling K. Brown).
Although suspicious Atlas initially refuses to don one of the immense exo-suits – because it requires a neural bond between man and machine – when a surprise attack leaves her stranded, she has no other choice.
That’s when Atlas’ combative relationship with ‘Smith’ (voiced by Gregory James Cohan) begins. Smith is the mech-suit’s persona with software designed to befriend its occupant.
Problem is: Misanthropic Atlas is aggressive and distrustful, particularly when deprived of her addictive black coffee. Eventually Atlas realizes she needs Smith to adapt and survive in this strange environment while battling Harlan’s cyborg troops.
Predictably plotted by screenwriters Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite, it’s clichéd and obviously derivative. Carrying the weight of the world on her slim shoulders, Atlas feels responsible if/when it’s doomsday for humankind, and Harlan was obviously named after sci-fi author Harlan Ellison.
Director Brad Peyton (“San Andreas”), who specializes in visual effects/spectacle, appears to have copied the exo-suit from James Cameron’s “Avatar” AMP (Amplified Mobility Platform) suits and his uninspiring, glacial pacing brings little enlightenment about the genocidal threat that supposedly propels this feature.
On the Granger Gauge, “Atlas” is an absurdly formulaic 3, streaming on Netflix.
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