{"id":2256332,"date":"2026-01-29T15:11:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2256332"},"modified":"2026-01-29T15:11:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:11:48","slug":"bridgerton-season-4-part-1-is-boring-sexless-and-excludes-beloved-character","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/bridgerton-season-4-part-1-is-boring-sexless-and-excludes-beloved-character\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Bridgerton&#8217; Season 4, Part 1 is boring, sexless \u2014 and excludes beloved character"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F01%2FUntitled-1-copy-2-3.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Get in your horse drawn carriage. <\/p>\n<p>The <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/05\/15\/entertainment\/bridgerton-author-julia-quinn-shades-raunchiest-show-headlines-its-really-not\/\">famously steamy historical drama \u201cBridgerton\u201d <\/a>is back, and it\u2019s turned oddly prudish.\u00a0The first half of Season 4 is here, now streaming on Netflix. The show is still charming and watchable, filled with a breezy story and dazzling visuals\u00a0 \u2013 but this time around, the central romance feels phoned in.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If you tune into \u201cBridgerton\u201d for the characters and the world, Season 4 still has plenty of treats to offer. There are more class politics than ever, juicy side plots for Lady Agatha Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) and the Bridgerton matriarch, Lady Violet\u00a0(Ruth Gemmell) \u2013 not to mention, revisiting last season\u2019s love story of<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/05\/20\/entertainment\/bridgerton-season-3-carriage-scene-with-penelope-colin-what-to-know\/\"> Penelope (Nicola Coughlan)<\/a> and Colin (Luke Newton).\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Yerin Ha as Sophie Baek in \u201cBridgerton.\u201d <span class=\"credit\">LIAM DANIEL\/NETFLIX<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Luke Thompson as Benedict Bridgerton in \u201cBridgerton.\u201d  <span class=\"credit\">LIAM DANIEL\/NETFLIX<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But if you mainly watch the show to get the seasonal central love story, you\u2019re in for a rough time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Produced by Shonda Rhimes and based on historical romance novels <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/05\/15\/entertainment\/bridgerton-author-julia-quinn-shades-raunchiest-show-headlines-its-really-not\/\">by Julia Quinn<\/a>, each season follows a different member of the Bridgerton family as they fall in love in 1800s England.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Season 4 of the steamy Netflix period piece follows Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) as he gets enamored with a maid, Sophie (Yerin Ha), after they meet at a masquerade ball. Clad in a mask and silver dress, she\u2019s a mystery woman. Dazzled by her, he has no idea she\u2019s \u201cthe help,\u201d who would be considered unsuitable for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a Cinderella story for Sophie, and the show practically beats the viewer over the head with references, as if the writers are shouting in our ears, \u201cDid you get that?\u201d Ah yes, because Cinderella is such an obscure reference that might escape us. <\/p>\n<p>The tepid romance isn\u2019t Ha or Thompson\u2019s fault. She\u2019s a winsome leading lady. Meanwhile, Thompson does his best with meager material. Benedict simply works better as a side character than a leading man.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Daniel Francis as Lord Anderson, Ruth Gemmell as Lady Violet Bridgerton in \u201cBridgerton.\u201d  <span class=\"credit\">LIAM DANIEL\/NETFLIX<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Yerin Ha and Luke Thompson in \u201cBridgerton.\u201d  <span class=\"credit\">\u00a9Netflix\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The pacing is also off. The plot point of him trying to figure out her identity is dragged out for a tediously long time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For a show that staked its reputation on being risque, there\u2019s an odd lack of any R-rated scenes, as if the writers suddenly got gun-shy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a strange time for \u201cBridgerton\u201d to turn prudish. Despite rumors that <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/10\/26\/entertainment\/gen-zs-anti-sex-crusade-will-kill-good-movies-and-tv\/\">Gen Z doesn\u2019t want sex<\/a> in their entertainment, the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/22\/entertainment\/heated-rivalry-stars-connor-storrie-hudson-williams-to-be-winter-olympics-2026-torchbearers\/\">steamy HBO Max phenomenon \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d <\/a>recently proved that audiences still embrace it, in a big way.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBridgerton\u201d Season 4 didn\u2019t seem to get that memo.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption> Yerin Ha as Sophie Baek in \u201cBridgerton.\u201d  <span class=\"credit\">LIAM DANIEL\/NETFLIX<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Luke Thompson as Benedict Bridgerton, Yerin Ha as Sophie Baek in \u201cBridgerton.\u201d  <span class=\"credit\">LIAM DANIEL\/NETFLIX<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The lack of spark or steam might work if there was a wealth of emotion between Benedict and Sophie. <\/p>\n<p>If a romance ignites from one meeting, then that encounter needs to be epic. While their night together at the masquerade ball is sweet \u2013 dancing, flirting \u2013\u00a0 their \u201cmeet cute\u201d fails to be convincing that it was so amazing as to fuel his obsession to find her.<\/p>\n<p>As if to hammer in their lack of chemistry, all the other romantic subplots this season work better, including a welcome one for Benedict\u2019s mom. While it\u2019s nice to see a woman of a certain age get a love story on TV, it doesn\u2019t say good things about Benedict that his mom\u2019s relationship outshines his own.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBridgerton\u201d has been a star-maker, with Season 1 premiering in 2020 to launch Rege-Jean Page. Season 3 star Nicola Coughlin was already famous from \u201cDerry Girls\u201d but the show catapulted her to further prominence.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Hugh Sachs as Brimsley, Nicola Coughlan as Penelope Bridgerton, Adjoa Andoh as Lady Danbury in \u201cBridgerton\u201d Season 4.  <span class=\"credit\">LIAM DANIEL\/NETFLIX<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Simone Ashley as Kate Sharma, Jonathan Bailey as Anthony Bridgerton in \u201cBridgerton\u201d Season 3.  <span class=\"credit\">LIAM DANIEL\/NETFLIX<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Season 2 launched <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/15\/entertainment\/bridgertons-luke-thompson-opens-up-about-co-star-jonathan-baileys-secret-manual-to-being-a-leading-man\/\">Jonathan Bailey <\/a>\u2013 who went on to star in \u201cWicked,\u201d and the \u201cJurassic World\u201d franchise, not to mention, making history as People\u2019s <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/11\/04\/entertainment\/jonathan-bailey-is-people-magazines-2025-sexiest-man-alive\/\">first openly gay \u201cSexiest Man Alive.\u201d <\/a>The show may have launched him<em> too <\/em>much, as there\u2019s neither hide nor hair of him in the first part of Season 4. <\/p>\n<p>Bailey clearly had better things\u00a0to do, and it\u2019s hard to blame him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Will Season 3 have the same impact on Thompson and Ha? As of now, they\u2019re not given much of a chance to shine, with a connection that\u2019s alternatively boring and tedious.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s possible the second half of Season 4 will rescue this story. For now, it\u2019s impossible to say, as Netflix didn\u2019t make those episodes available to critics. But, you\u2019d think if the rest of the season redeemed it, they would have.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cBridgerton\u201d Season 4 is divided into 2 parts with 4 episodes each. The first part is now streaming. The second part premieres on Netflix on Feb. 26.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Get in your horse drawn carriage. The famously steamy historical drama \u201cBridgerton\u201d is back, and it\u2019s turned oddly prudish.\u00a0The first half of Season 4 is here, now streaming on Netflix. The show is still charming and watchable, filled with a breezy story and dazzling visuals\u00a0 \u2013 but this time around, the central romance feels phoned [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2256333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[348497,21741,305572,349407,351253,22205,21913],"class_list":["post-2256332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-bridgerton","tag-entertainment","tag-jonathan-bailey","tag-romance","tag-shonda-rhimes","tag-television","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Bridgerton-Season-4-Part-1-is-boring-sexless-\u2014-and.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2256332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2256334,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256332\/revisions\/2256334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2256333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2256332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2256332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2256332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}