How ‘Bridgerton’ Makes History

When the first season of the Netflix series “Bridgerton” premiered on Christmas Day, Amanda Vickery sat at home with her three daughters and watched every episode. This was in 2020, in the midst of England’s lockdown, and Vickery remembers thinking, “Thank goodness for this escape.”

That Vickery could lose herself that way is a particular compliment to “Bridgerton,” an enflowered fantasy adapted from the Regency-set romance novels of Julia Quinn. Vickery, a professor at Queen Mary, University of London, is a historian. And “Bridgerton,” a show in which empowered women swoon to orchestral versions of Ariana Grande, takes a rather liberal approach to history.

Watching at home, Vickery did not imagine that she would ever work on “Bridgerton,” but for this third season, the second installment of which arrives on Thursday, she served as its historical consultant, succeeding her friend and colleague, Hannah Greig, a professor emerita at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Does a show that repurposes Coldplay’s “Yellow” as a wedding march really require historians? Yes. Several.

“We’re aware that Bridgerton isn’t aiming for documentary accuracy,” Vickery said during a recent video call, with Greig in an adjoining window. “It is a fantasy, but it’s a fantasy that’s grounded in an understanding of period.” Her role, as she sees it, is to point out potential anachronisms and then let the writers and directors decide from there.

Greig had a slightly different formulation. “You are the on-call geek, the walking encyclopedia,” she said. But she and Vickery share a motto of sorts: The show makes choices, not mistakes.