Bridgerton leaves the BBC’s Call The Midwife with a rather diminished look, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

Blame it like the rest of the coronavirus, but 2020 will be remembered as the year Christmas Future took over from Christmas Past and anyone with access to Netflix gave up on poor old Aunt Beeb.

With new productions polarized by successive blockades, BBC1’s festive fare was, at best, uneven.

We got 75 minutes of Strictly highlights, a remake of Blankety Blank hosted by Bradley Walsh and in the afternoon he was back in rehearsals for The Vicar of Dibley.

But broadcast giant Netflix showed us how to make Christmas right, serving its biggest production of the year: eight episodes of a romantic epic from seven years ago, with all breasts raised and dollars. He imagines himself generously, at the expense of colossals.

No one knows, how it was possible when terrestrial television struggled to fulfill its programming. Probably at the bottom of his lair at Netflix Castle, a thousand crazy scientists have struggled all year. At midnight lightning struck, and its creation came to life: Franken-Austen!

Coupled with pieces of the Regency’s romantic novels, Bridgerton (Netflix) is built from the corsets of Pride and Prejudice, the petticoats of Sense and Sensibility, and the wigs of Northanger Abbey.

There are ribbons, bows, silks and satins from every scene the holy saint ever wrote. Each feature looks more sumptuous than the last.

And it’s completely dool. While Bridgerton is a costume drama down to the tips of her lace umbrellas, calling it historic would be a serious breach of the law of commercial descriptions.

In this version of Georgian England, the aristocrats sweep the Hyde Park actresses before heading to the palace to see their sisters presented to the monarch. If the queen likes the look of a girl, she comes down from her throne and kisses her on the forehead as a sign of royal favor.

This is the signal for battalions of eligible bachelors to knock on the lady’s door every afternoon and take turns to propose, until she gives in and agrees to marry one of them.

Queen Charlotte, by the way, is black – played by Golda Rosheuvel. So is the frowning hero, the Duke of Hastings (Rege-Jean Page), as well as a considerable minority of the nobility, some with dreadlocks.

Since all this is a galloping fantasy, it makes no difference if it is an inaccurate description of England under George IV: the characters do not pay attention to race nor do they need us.

All the pieces of the plot escape Jane Austen. A girl (Phoebe Dynevor) with countless sisters and a bossy mother (Pride and Prejudice) discovers that she is annoyingly attracted to a man she can’t stand (still Pride and Prejudice). Meanwhile, a poor cousin (Ruby Barker) comes to stay with her wealthy relatives and finds that she is much smarter and prettier than them (Mansfield Park).

The intrigues deepen when all the characters visit Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (hang on, this is from William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair).

It is a cartoon version of classical literature, where the heroine laments: “You have no idea what it’s like to be a woman. What can it look like if all life is reduced to a single moment. That’s all I’ve been raised for. That’s all I am, I have no other value. If I can’t find a husband, I won’t be worth anything.

Feminism, then, does not exist in the fantastic land.

Since there isn’t enough sex in the original Austen to fit the Netflix audience, young Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) spends all available time making a joke on his mistress. We see more of his background than of his face.

Julie Andrews, once a very different Christmas star like the nun singing Mary in The Sound Of Music, provides narration.

It’s a society gossip, Lady Whistledown, who sees all the scandals and details them in her defamatory pamphlets. If you’re old-fashioned enough to want a suitable nun for Christmas, there was Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter) still plowing bravely on Call the Midwife (BBC1).

However, this perennial post-turkey fare seems as blurred as an old paper chain, alongside the brilliant Netflix nonsense.

Trixie (Helen George) has not found love since we last saw her. Her godmother (a presence that was felt off stage, but never seen, like Miss Arfur Daley) worries that she will be left “on the shelf” and orders her to try a marriage office, the equivalent from 1965 to online dating.

This gave Trixie an excuse to sit in the hotel tea rooms with a mink wrapped around her shoulders as she smoked nervously.

However, it’s tricky to please: no facial hair, no drinkers, and definitely no Germans. The Munich beer festival must be his idea of ​​purgatory.

We learned that the doctor’s receptionist, Miss Higgins (Georgie Glen), is a spiritualist and has fond memories of a Harvey Wallbanger cocktail she drank in 1926. Maybe she was a flapper.

Nurse Crane (Linda Bassett) wanted to escape with the circus and perform in the high trapeze, “with legs as long as ribbons.” The ring master, Peter Davison, let her try it, even though her character had lung cancer and was on her last legs.

Everything was a little diminished. Call the midwife who used to deliver emotional perceivers and now can’t handle much more than a faint smile. If you decide to abandon the tradition and spend Christmas on the net, no one could criticize you.