Chris Van Dusen makes romance inviting without dismissing the pressures on the women expected to marry. We recommend Bridgerton for that seriousness and its pleasures, though his dialogue sometimes works too hard to impress.
Fi1m perspective
In Bridgerton (2020), fine clothes do little to ease the pressure to marry. Chris Van Dusen enjoys the clothes and the courtship, but he also takes the women doing the choosing seriously. We rate the series highly, with a reservation about how often the dialogue asks to be admired. His characters can make a feeling sound more complicated than it is. They are more persuasive when he lets desire and duty give them enough to contend with.
Shonda Rhimes's Grey's Anatomy began in 2005; Van Dusen's first writing credit came in its third series, in 2007. He went on to become a writer and co-executive producer on Scandal (2012). The early hospital drama's quickness and sharpness are useful context for his work, though we would not assign a shared programme's virtues to one writer. Nor should its eventual weariness become a personal charge against him. Bridgerton, which he created and ran for its first two series, gives us firmer grounds for a judgement.
Adapting Julia Quinn's novels, he gives period romance modern attitudes and diverse casting without treating glamour as something to apologise for. The polished Regency London suits a story that wants courtship to be pleasurable to watch, even when the expectations around marriage are restrictive. We found Bridgerton unexpectedly touching because the writing allows women's sexual curiosity to matter alongside the pressure to marry. The family ensemble also means that a romance has other people's demands to answer to, giving the lovers something worth worrying about beyond their own feelings.
The writing weakens when Van Dusen keeps explaining a difficulty after we have understood it. In Bridgerton, familiar obstacles can linger beyond their usefulness, while elaborate dialogue makes feelings sound rehearsed. That is where a capable writer needs to trust both the actors and the audience a little more. More historical dirt would not fix those passages; shorter speeches and less delay might. Start with Bridgerton, and allow for the occasional conversation that could have finished several lines earlier.
Biography
Chris Van Dusen is an American television writer and producer. A native of Maryland, he graduated from Emory University and received an MFA from the University of Southern California.
Van Dusen worked on Grey's Anatomy from 2005 to 2012 as a writer and producer. He later served as a writer and producer on Scandal (2012). He is the creator, executive producer and showrunner of the first two seasons of Bridgerton (2020).
