S03.E08: The White Elephant

[ItCouldBeWorse]

On 3/6/2019 at 2:15 PM, Morlock said:

She is very lucky that she was only locked in a room in the mental asylum and that they didn't start doing crazy tests and procedures on her! 

I believe she was locked upstairs in her own home. She could see her son playing outside from her window, and Abigail knew where to find her.  The Duke threatened to send her to an asylum.

Just now, ItCouldBeWorse said:

I believe she was locked upstairs in her own home. She could see her son playing outside from her window, and Abigail knew where to find her.  The Duke threatened to send her to an asylum. It was confusing because last episode it looked like she was dragged from her home, but maybe the "doctors" examined her, pronounced her insane, and brought her back home to be imprisoned.

[Morlock]

10 minutes ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

I believe she was locked upstairs in her own home. She could see her son playing outside from her window, and Abigail knew where to find her.  The Duke threatened to send her to an asylum.

I thought it all looked rather nice there. I put it down to their social class. I watched that entire episode and yet must have blanked out here and there because I didn't pick up on that. 

[ItCouldBeWorse]

On 3/8/2019 at 4:49 PM, iMonrey said:

Good Lord, the royal families in Europe are so horribly inbred it's a wonder they haven't mutated into some other species.  

Well, at least their grandmothers were only half-sisters, so they were only half-second cousins.  It could have been far worse.

Edited March 12, 2019 by ItCouldBeWorse

[Nolefan]

On 3/11/2019 at 12:07 AM, Morlock said:

One thing I like about English TV series is they don't run a show into the ground like America does. They have a set amount of seasons and the episodes tend to be pretty tight without resorting to filler eps which have nothing to do with the main storyline. 

That said this season has been pretty empty. Kind of jumping around to different events almost every week except keeping that terrible Duchess and Footman story. Some key things happened this season but they were done in a way that was forgettable really. You have the revolutions in France, the death of Skerrit due to cholera and the cholera outbreak, the Queen meeting Nurse Nightingale, the exhibition. Key events of the time period and yet glossed over really. 

And for what? So we can see a footman seduce a naive Duchess? So we can see more about the servants and everyone else but the person the show is named after. I thought this was going to be in the vein of The Crown which balances human drama with historical events quite well. At this rate the Crimean war which is just a few years away will be reduced to a couple of minutes of story line. 

This is what I like about English series as well, but S3 of Victoria seemed like a disjointed mess to me, which is surprising because there were ONLY 8 episodes so I am still scratching my head as to why it seemed, as you said, so empty. Still don’t understand why V&A were fighting ALL SEASON. There was this stuff at the beginning of the season about Victoria craving love from her people. So, is this true or was Albert wrong? Is wanting the love of her people good or bad? And I really don’t know what was Albert’s problem all season. Was he really afraid she was losing her mind after childbirth? Was Victoria have postpartum depression, again and Albert doesn’t know how to deal with it? Or was he right to treat her like a child because she acts like one? Was Victoria angry at Albert because he was “bullying” Bertie? Was Albert bullying Bertie? Or was Victoria precieving this incorrectly? Was Albert’s issues due to Victoria treating Albert like “he could do nothing right?” Was Victoria shown to have caused the marital strife by not believing in Albert, which she fixed when she supported him in regard to the Great Exhibition? Was Feodora and Palmerston the source of all their martial strife, as things seemed to get back on track for them when Victoria stopped agreeing with Palmerston and Victoria started being nice to Feodora? I really don’t know. It is almost like the show just decided that S3’s “theme” was Victoria and Albert’s marital rift, but it had no cohesive or coherent plan as to how they were going to accomplish this, which is mind boggling because THERE ARE ONLY 8 EPISODES. And honesty, I feel like with all the hostility and distance between V&A this season, the audience deserved more of a makeup between V&A than we got. A hug in the rain and a few giggles for a split second while they rolled on the bed in the distance, really? And don’t get me stated about Albert falling unconscious at the end after a brief kiss. Also, don’t get me started on all the characters that I loved being totally missing from S3 (I miss Ernest sooo much!!). This is (was?) my favorite show. I want it to come back for a S4, but, honestly, I am afraid of a S4 if it is going to be the mess that S3 was to me.

[Morlock]

6 hours ago, Nolefan said:

This is what I like about English series as well, but S3 of Victoria seemed like a disjointed mess to me, which is surprising because there were ONLY 8 episodes so I am still scratching my head as to why it seemed, as you said, so empty. Still don’t understand why V&A were fighting ALL SEASON. There was this stuff at the beginning of the season about Victoria craving love from her people. So, is this true or was Albert wrong? Is wanting the love of her people good or bad? And I really don’t know what was Albert’s problem all season. Was he really afraid she was losing her mind after childbirth? Was Victoria have postpartum depression, again and Albert doesn’t know how to deal with it? Or was he right to treat her like a child because she acts like one? Was Victoria angry at Albert because he was “bullying” Bertie? Was Albert bullying Bertie? Or was Victoria precieving this incorrectly? Was Albert’s issues due to Victoria treating Albert like “he could do nothing right?” Was Victoria shown to have caused the marital strife by not believing in Albert, which she fixed when she supported him in regard to the Great Exhibition? Was Feodora and Palmerston the source of all their martial strife, as things seemed to get back on track for them when Victoria stopped agreeing with Palmerston and Victoria started being nice to Feodora? I really don’t know. It is almost like the show just decided that S3’s “theme” was Victoria and Albert’s marital rift, but it had no cohesive or coherent plan as to how they were going to accomplish this, which is mind boggling because THERE ARE ONLY 8 EPISODES. And honesty, I feel like with all the hostility and distance between V&A this season, the audience deserved more of a makeup between V&A than we got. A hug in the rain and a few giggles for a split second while they rolled on the bed in the distance, really? And don’t get me stated about Albert falling unconscious at the end after a brief kiss. Also, don’t get me started on all the characters that I loved being totally missing from S3 (I miss Ernest sooo much!!). This is (was?) my favorite show. I want it to come back for a S4, but, honestly, I am afraid of a S4 if it is going to be the mess that S3 was to me.

Yeah it was a bad season. In a way too much happening but no depth on any of it so it seemed like it was empty. The one thing they placed way too much emphasis on was the Duchess and Footman story and that was boring. 

I don't know why they were fighting so much either. The real Victoria mourned Albert for the rest of her life yet our V&A seem to be almost indifferent to each other yet keep making babies. I think Albert is bored, at least in the show. He is also struggling to maintain a sense of masculinity at a time when the man ruled his house and family. 

I don't think Albert was bullying Bertie, not necessarily dealing with him in the right way but I know I have wanted to drop kick the little shit across the room a few times. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to his behaviour. He does not seem r******* or anything. 

Given the way S3 ends it seems Albert's health issues are starting, maybe that brings V&A closer together?

[Nolefan]

3 hours ago, Morlock said:

Yeah it was a bad season. In a way too much happening but no depth on any of it so it seemed like it was empty. The one thing they placed way too much emphasis on was the Duchess and Footman story and that was boring. 

I don't know why they were fighting so much either. The real Victoria mourned Albert for the rest of her life yet our V&A seem to be almost indifferent to each other yet keep making babies. I think Albert is bored, at least in the show. He is also struggling to maintain a sense of masculinity at a time when the man ruled his house and family. 

I don't think Albert was bullying Bertie, not necessarily dealing with him in the right way but I know I have wanted to drop kick the little shit across the room a few times. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to his behaviour. He does not seem r******* or anything. 

Given the way S3 ends it seems Albert's health issues are starting, maybe that brings V&A closer together?

I remember during the S1 episode Ordinary Woman Albert stated that it was really important to him that he have the allowance so that he could do something good himself and not have it “given” to him by Victoria. But during S1, S2, and first two episodes of S3 Albert seemed fine with working with Victoria on her Queen duties until Victoria got mad at him for giving her bad advice about the Chartists and she started looking to Palmerston for advice instead of Albert. Albert then tried to be Mr. Mom, but then Victoria accused him of bullying Bertie, then he hired the child abuser, and then Victoria got furious about how Albert treated Bertie after he got his head examined, so it seems he gave up the child rearing. I guess Victoria pushing him out of “her” world kinda put Albert on the path of finally accomplishing what he initially wanted from his life by way of the Great Exhibition. In my opinion, I think he also gained Victoria’s respect. While I think Victoria was madly in love with Albert, I don’t think she had a lot of respect for him and his abilities prior to the Great Exhibition. I think Victoria needed to see other people admiring Albert to get her to really admire Albert herself — like she had a prize that everyone else wanted. And I think Albert has been shown as a person who wants to earn people’s respect (and I think for Albert it has been more than a masculinity problem; the man in my opinion had low self esteem in general which was not helped by the English people making a past time of mocking him), and the most important person he wanted to earn the respect from was Victoria. I think this is the thing that will bring them closer together.

[sainte-chapelle]

I finally lowed through this season, it was pretty dreadful. Not sure if I will stick around for season 4.

[mac123x]

On 3/12/2019 at 7:46 AM, Nolefan said:

There was this stuff at the beginning of the season about Victoria craving love from her people. So, is this true or was Albert wrong? Is wanting the love of her people good or bad? And I really don’t know what was Albert’s problem all season.

I semi binge watched on Amazon Prime (like 2-3 episodes at one sitting).  Running theme for the season was Victoria doing questionable things to get the love and approval of her subjects, and Albert being hyper-judgmental about it.  This episode showed that Albert was wrong, because he finally got the adulation of the populace when they started chanting "God Save Prince Albert!" outside the exposition.

 

I thought Albert was being stupid about it.  Does he remember what the Brits did to a couple of unpopular kings in the past?  Charles I, James II...  Hell, they had the whole Chartist movement this season.  Vic wanting her people to like her was pretty rational.

[iMonrey]

It doesn't look like there is going to be another season of this show. Not surprising given the drop in quality we saw in Season 3 but I'd be interested to hear the discussions that went on behind the scenes, between ITV and PBS. What does surprise me is that PBS has been running Season 3 again the past few weeks, which is what I would expect to see if they were leading up to the start of Season 4. That's what they did last year before airing Season 3. I fully expected to tune in last night for a new season and when I didn't see it I Googled it, only to discover the show is considered "on hiatus."

[dubbel zout]

Please discuss season 4 in the newly created Season 4 thread.