25 thoughts on “MCM: The Boys of Victoria, Part 1

  1. I have a huge *sigh* lust for Rufus Swell. And his Lord M is a tour de force performance.

    You can definitely understand and see why the very sheltered and fatherless Queen would see him, first as a father figure, and then fall in love with him. Lord M was definitely her first love. He treated her as an intelligent and grown woman, not a weak little girl.

    There wasn’t much of competition. The abusive Conroy and her male cousins such as George of Cambridge, which was William IV choice of husband for Victoria.

  2. Sorry, dahlings, but Lord Melbourne was quite a bit older than Sewell. He also had a habit of falling asleep during Parliamentary sessions. On the other hand, the scandal referred to was Melbourne’s wife’s (Lady Caroline Lamb) affaire with Lord Byron,followed by his alleged affaire with another married woman, Caroline Norton, the one of which he was acquitted. The woman in question was also a novelist and a political reformer. The Victorian Era didn’t get half so stiff until after Albert died; then so did the fun. All that was left was child pornography and grinding poverty while England gloriously ripped off the half of the world the other European countries were trying for.
    Loved, loved, loved Jenna Coleman as Victoria.One might even say she was born for the part. Has any other Companion risen so high?

  3. Karen, you are so correct. Have you seen him in Taming of the Shrew in the Shakespeare Retold DVDs? Kate is Shirley Henderson.

  4. Oh, Rufus, once upon a time, I groaned whenever you showed up in a costume drama. I appreciated you not. And then one day, something changed. You played Lord Mark in Tristan + Isolde, and stole my heart. You persist in refusing to return it to me. You stomped on it a bit in two seasons of The Man in the High Castle, where you manage to be my favorite character in spite of playing a Nazi, and then you played Lord M, and caused both myself and my mother to develop Prime Minister crushes on you. Shame on you, for being so damn fabulous! (But thank you so much, too! ;))

  5. Still wiping the drool off my chin. What a fine looking bunch of guys (exception is Peter Firth — what a troll his character was).

  6. I gave up when Queen Vickie had her champagne-fueled hissy fit at her mother. I really wanted to like this show. But it was alternatively tedious and over-wrought, like a 1980s “Very Special Episode.” For all of her charisma on Dr. Who, Jenna Coleman was shrill and unlikeable.

    However, I may watch the rest of the episode on mute for the beauty that is Rufus Sewell.

    1. I’ve heard it gets better and will probably continue watching, but, yeah, I wasn’t impressed with it either.

  7. Oh Rufus Sewell. He was looking a little bedraggled in some of his recent film appearances, but kudos to whoever spruced him up because DAMN if I’m not 100% down with Queen Victoria’s crush on her tall, dark, and handsome prime minister. So he’s a bit fatherly, she clearly needs that — but he also recognizes her spark of potential genius, which he mostly shows by glowing proudly at her. Whatever, just keep his pants tight and I’m happy!

    Rufus Sewell is a decade too young to be portraying Lord Melbourne.

  8. And no matter your feelings about A Knight’s Tale, that’s the film where I fell in love Rufus. Dressed all in black riding a very large powerful black horse. Be still my heart!

    I liked his portrayal of Lord M. despite him being way too young and sexy for that role (historically speaking)

    1. For me it was Dangerous Beauty, which also gets a bad rap on here. But he was just so damn gorgeous and sultry!

      1. Same here, I loved Dangerous Beauty. Lush Venice and Rufus. *fans self at sudden hot flash*. But he’s fantastic as Lord M and also Petrucchio opposite Shirley Henderson in Taming of the Shrew.

      2. He’s way under utilized in that film, which was basically butchered down from a longer film that probably would have been a thousand times better. If there was ever a Director’s Cut released, I’d be all over it in a heartbeat.

        I’ve had a crush on Rufus since I first clapped eyes on “Dark City” 20 years ago. I’ll watch anything he’s in, but “Dangerous Beauty” taxed the limits of my tolerance for playing fast and loose with history as well as chopping up the plot so badly that I was having whiplash from the scene changes. Not even Rufus could salvage it for me, sadly.

  9. No such word as our’s. Ours. Ours. How do you even come up with such a thing? I enjoy the blog, and I’m aware that it’s not formal or academic writing, but–our’s? For the reputation of your blog, and the preservation of the language, please take advantage of basic spellcheckers, basic grammar checks, and perhaps a glance at Garner’s *Usage*. Apostrophes are not pretty ornaments: they have specific and limited functions.

    1. And there were too many commas in your second sentence; neither of them were necessary. So maybe try focusing on your own writing issues before nitpicking others.

  10. I swooned happily all through Victoria. But then I have crushed on Rufus Sewell since Middlemarch.

  11. We all have to remember that Victoria was very sheltered and poorly educated for her position as Heir (Both Conroy & Duchess Victoria thought they would govern & pass it to her husband who would favor them.).

    Victoria detested Conroy who separated her from her mother (she was on his side and possibly his lover), belittled her and abused her both physically and mentally. It was only natural that she wouldn’t listen to them or want them around when she became Queen. It’s a fact that she shared a bedroom with her mother and when she became Queen she moved to her own room.

    I thought the show portrayed this excellently.

Comments are closed.