From the return of the BBC’s The Night Manager, to Netflix’s Stranger Things finale and a Game of Thrones spin-off, the start of the new year has, quite literally, started with a bang.
Fresh off of a stellar year of television, 2026 does not appear to be messing around in bringing us our favourite shows.
But perhaps highest on people’s excitement radar has to be the return of Netflix’s ultimate romantic drama Bridgerton.
The highly anticipated fourth season will tell the story of the forgotten member of the Bridgerton clan, Benedict (Luke Thompson), as he looks for love.
With part one of the new season debuting on January 29, before the second half is delivered on February 26, viewers have only days to binge what has been described the ‘most heart-racing drama’ ever.
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As with each season of the period epic, the new installment takes a novel from romance author Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series about the love stories of the eight Bridgerton siblings.
This particular season inspired by the third book in Julia’s book series, titled ‘An Offer from a Gentleman’.
With each spinoff addressing the Bridgerton matriarch and other relatives, this time around Benedict meets his match in Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha) at his mother Violet Bridgerton’s (Ruth Gemmell) masquerade ball.
Describing the ‘very different trajectory’ that season four takes, showrunner Jess Brownell said how love is found ‘at opposite ends of a pole’.
‘Benedict lives in a fantasy world,’ she told Netflix.
‘Sophie lives in a hard reality. You have two characters who are at opposite ends of a pole, and rather than either of them needing to get all the way to the other side, they both need to travel to the middle.
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‘Between fantasy and reality, true love lies in the middle — neither one creates the circumstances for romance to bloom. You have to embrace a little bit of both.’
Last year, the series sent fans into a meltdown when Colin (Luke Newton) and Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) were intimate during that unforgettable carriage scene.
But for Luke, who’s been a part of the Bridgerton cast since it first premiered in 2020, he told Metro how fans aren’t going to expect the standout steamy moment from this season.
‘There are a couple of… maybe there’s one specific one that feels like “a thing”, like a carriage. Maybe that’s all I can say,’ he said.
The 37-year-old also discussed how he has always felt there’s a ‘blurred line’ between him and Benedict.
Explaining how he has ‘absorbed’ the performances of previous male leads, from Regé-Jean Page and Jonathan Bailey to Luke Newton, he added: ‘Everyone does it in their own way, and everyone has their strengths and the thing that really works for them.
‘I’ve been in the corner, just taking notes.’
Given that Bridgerton fans lost all composure following the release of the latest trailer, it doesn’t take an expert to realise that viewers might lose their minds this coming Thursday…
Bridgerton season 4 volume 1 premieres on Thursday January 29 on Netflix. Volume 2 premieres on Thursday February 26.
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