Victoria: The Luxury of Conscience

"You have been a great prime minister!"

And so we reach the rather gripping season finale, full of incident and excitement as we knew it would be, and an impressive piece of writing in drawing all the threads together.

We start with family. Leopold is at court to make amends to a cold reception, but Vicky becoming deathly ill, although at first leading to clashes between Victoria and Albert, brings the whole family together. Except that Victoria finishes up by letting Lezhen go. Not because Albert says so, but because Victoria has outgrown her, It's an emotional parting.

We also have romance between Mrs Skerrett and Mr Francatelli, and a heartbreaking moment where Ernest has to dump Harriet rather than propose to her because his syphilis symptoms have recurred. Never mind that none of this happened in real history; it's damn good telly.

But ultimately the focus is on Sir Robert Peel and his repeal of the Corn Laws, egged on (not always helpfully) by all the characters we like and opposed rather rudely by those we don't. It's a final triumph for Peel and, indeed, for Nigel Lindsay. You'd never guess from his excellent performances on Victoria that he was Barry in Four Lions.

But there's a final shock, the killing of Edward Drummond which somewhat ruins the already doomed relationship between him and Lord Alfred; sadly, this is narratively the only way of concluding a same sex budding romance set in this era without it taking up a lot of narrative time and focus, but I have to say that it isn't very brave writing. Still, it's a lovely touch seeing the Duchess of Buccleuch being so sympathetic to poor Lord Alfred. And at least Drummond gets to live three years longer than he did in real life.

Victoria may be somewhat easy telly and shy away, perhaps, from doing things other than predictably, but I'm glad a series like this exists and I'll bev watching at Christmas.

Victoria: Faith, Hope and Charity

"If I follow my conscience, I will destroy my party."

We knew it was coming; Victoria does the Irish Potato Famine, and it’s as devastating as you’d expect. This is not a normal episode, exactly; an unusual amount of time is devoted to the famine, and the character of Dr. Traill, a good man through whom we see both the unimaginable suffering and the equally unimaginable Malthusian bigotry that blames the “feckless” Irish poor for their own fate. It’s an outstanding piece of television, ending unusually with a caption telling us of Dr. Traill’s unfortunate fate.

Victoria herself cannot, of course,  be seen to be anything other than deeply horrified, and much of the episode consists of her trying to persuade Sir Robert Peel to do something, which she finally seems to do- I suspect there’s a sprinkling of artistic licence here, but in opening the Pandora’s Box that is trade and tariffs, Peel will be scratching at the persistent itch that is the Corn Laws. I suspect they will loom large in the remaining episodes.

Elsewhere, we discover that Ernest has syphilis, and may have aff Fred his sexual partners, including the newly widowed Duchess of Sutherland. And kindly Albert makes a loo for the servants. But Ireland, of course, overshadows everything in what is an extraordinary episode.

Victoria: Entente Cordiale

"It is a place of artifice and deceit!"

So Victoria and her entourage are off to Paris and its predictably more fashionable court under a diplomatic pretext, and we meet the wily and somewhat precarious Louis Philippe, King of the French, a self-made monarch who has actually, heaven forbid, once had to work for a living. He's a fascinating character with a unique background and hidden depths- and, of course, after the 1848 revolution he would end his life once again teaching in the UK. But that's the future.

The narrative point of this is, of course, for the characters to react to the French court. So Victoria feels a little self-conscious of her style, while the Duchess of Buccleuch is the xenophobic comic relief. But Albert, especially with the sight of his brother's cavorting, is still affected by last episode's revelations and has gone quite alarmingly puritanical. This is, of course, the precursor to his telling Victoria everything; he never could keep a secret. And her reaction is, of course, wonderful. Albert is a very lucky man to have a wife like her; this is superb writing of character.

We see the eating of ortalan, something which may please the late President Mitterand but is not exactly ethical treatment of birds. Miss Coke begins to see that Ernest is that into her, and is not exactly monogamous. But we end on a bit of a cliffhanger: Victoria is pregnant again...