Now then guys and girls while I have done reviews of British TV episodes before they have mainly been Doctor Who episodes and well I wanted to branch out a little bit. As luck would have it I happen to have the first series of a British TV series on DVD and so this one really wasn't a tough choice at all and so I would add a touch of class to this review by reviewing the very first episode of Victoria with the episode being called "Doll 123" enjoy.
The plot of this episode is Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent inherits the throne of England after her uncle King William IV dies and so the new queen finds herself tested by both her new responsibilities and her loyalties. I have to say that I really did like the story that was being told in the episode altho the story for the episode would have been better suited being spread across the entire first series just because there's enough plot there to fill the entire first series of the show but like I said it was still an enjoyable story to see play out.
Starring in the episode and the rest of the series are Jenna Coleman as Alexandrina Victoria and Catherine Flemming as The Duchess of Kent. Also starring in the episode and the rest of the series are Daniela Holtz as Baroness Lehzen , Nell Hudson as Miss Skerett , Ferdinand Kingsley as Charles Francatelli , Tommy Knight as Brodie , Eve Myles as Mrs Jenkins , Paul Rhys as Sir John Conroy , Adrian Schiller as Penge , Peter Firth as The Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale and Rufus Sewell as Lord Melbourne.
To say that the acting in was superb would be a huge understatement because my god is the acting fantastic. I really cannot give the acting in this episode enough praise because every actor in this episode gives a truly great performance alot of that tho does come down to the script which was written by show creator Daisy Goodwin who gives each of the characters so many layers and so all the actors have to do is say her wonderfully written dialog and boom great performances by everyone in the shows cast.
Now there is some CGI in the episode and I cannot say for sure who it was done by but it was either Goodbye Kansas Studios , Milk VFX or Rowley SFX as all three are listed as providing CGI effects for the series. I honestly feel that the CGI in this episode was alot better then what it really had any right to be since when you hear of CGI being used in a TV series it usually means that the effects aren't that good and well the opposite is true here since all there doing really in enhancing what's already there and so the effects don't stand out as much and so they look just as stunning.
I've given this episode alot of praise and trust me ill be giving it alot more by the time this review is done but there is one thing I have to talk about. That's the fact that this episode packs so much into it hour and nine minuet running time that I wouldn't blame anyone if they said they found it hard to keep up because honestly I was the same and that's why I feel that several story elements from this episode would have been better served being spread across the entire first series since it makes this episode a little bit easier to follow and it eases the fans in to the show a little bit better.
It would be foolish of me to talk about this episode and not talk about Jenna Coleman because she's is just so freaking good not only in this episode but in this series. She fits this character perfectly and she does such a good such a good job portraying this truly iconic person. It would have been very easy for Jenna to slip up here because like I said she's playing an actual person but no she get's the character perfectly even down to her rebellious nature and quick wit which is something that I really loved in this episode.
I honestly cannot bash this episode that much because I really freaking love it because of how well written the episode is. Nothing in this episode feels like a cliche or feels like i've seen it done better in something else everything about this episode and about this script feels very original and that makes the episode more fun to watch since you really have no idea about what's coming next and for me that's a great thing.
Even tho this film episode is over an hour long we don't really get to find out alot about the side characters. Which is something that I kind of expected since this is a TV show and so they will get more into detail about these characters in later episodes but even so for a first episode we barely get any scenes with these characters which I honestly didn't like since we're also not really given a reason to care about the characters either.
As mentioned before this episode is an hour and nine minuets and it really doesn't feel like it in my opinion. Yes the episode does have the amount of story to cover that running time and the episode does take it's time telling the story and it helps that the pacing for the episode is overall really good but the pacing does get slightly bad near the end of the episode when scenes start to drag on but like I said overall the pacing is really good.
Now then boys and girls this is a drama and so that means that we have to talk about the drama that's in the episode itself. Honestly this episode wasn't really that heavy on the drama pr at least not as heavy as I thought that it was going to be since it's more focused on telling a good story and setting up the character of Victoria and all the other characters but what little drama we did get I thought was really well written and well acted.
Overall this episode was really stunning in every way possible and it's one that I highly recommend people track down and watch. Now I won't say that this is a perfect infact i've listed some of the issues that I found with the episode in this very review but this episode does a good job of making you want to see more from this show and that's one of the things that a good debut episode should do in my opinion and so this episode gets an 8.5 out of 10 from me.
All images used in this review were gathered from the UK Amazon and the official Victoria fandom wiki page. I'll straight up admit I wasn't hopeful that there would be any high definition images for this episode but I was pleasantly surprised by how many images that were high definition hell even the above image is pretty HD as such I have no choice but to recommend you use the official Victoria fandom wiki page if you like this series and want high definition images from the series or even this episode and in case your wondering where this show aired in the UK it aired on ITV and in America it aired on PBS.