Trivia / Victoria

• Cast Incest: Jenna Coleman and Tom Hughes - who play husband-and-wife (and first cousins) Victoria and Albert - began dating in real life either during or soon before production of Series 1.
• Dawson Casting: 30 year old Jenna Coleman plays the 18 year old Queen Victoria. She pulls it off due to her very youthful looks. Series 3 brings the series into Victoria's 30s.
  • Tom Hughes is the same age as Jenna and plays Albert, who is also about 18 or 19 when he joins the series.
  • Inverted with Rufus Sewell who actually plays a character more than a decade his senior.
  • A rather extreme example with Diana Rigg, who is in her mid-70s, playing a woman who in real life was only in her early 30s at the time Series 2 takes place.
• Deleted Scene: Series 1 originally aired over 8 episodes in the UK; in the US, it aired as 7 episodes, with the first two episodes edited together. As a result, several scenes from the original UK broadcast had to be trimmed. PBS made up for this, however, by adding an average of 5 minutes of extra footage to its subsequent broadcasts that was neither broadcast nor released on DVD in the UK, including several scenes that resolve plot points left open in the original ITV version. This continued into the broadcasts of Series 2 on PBS, however the US broadcast of the 2017 Christmas special deleted a subplot involving Victoria having a portrait painted that remained exclusive to the ITV and streaming/home video versions of the episode.
• Dueling Works: With The Crown (2016), as biopics of the most seminal Queens in British history. Noteworthy is how much of a study in contrasts the two casts are, with the ambitious young ingenue Victoria having almost nothing in common with the slightly older, eminently competent, yet tentative Elizabeth. Likewise the dashing Prince Philip is the total opposite of the dorky Albert. And Lord Melbourne's charm and affection for his queen stand in total contrast with Churchill's infamous gruffness and disdain for his. The dueling nature of the two shows was amplified by the fact that Victoria starred Jenna Coleman and The Crown starred Matt Smith, and the two had previously co-starred together on Doctor Who, as well as by the fact that Alex Jennings plays the queen's scheming uncle in both series—Leopold I of Belgium on Victoria and the Duke of Windsor (the former Edward VIII) on The Crown (being decidedly more sympathetic in the former). The duel intensified in the fandoms as The Crown ended up being the awards darling, whereas Victoria saw itself mostly snubbed its first two seasons.
• In Memoriam: The third episode of Series 3 is dedicated to longtime Masterpiece host Russell Baker, who had died the week before its broadcast. Baker had hosted the program from 1992 to 2004.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: See No Export for You. For those unable to access the PBS stream, unofficial circulation and home recording of the PBS versions of the episodes are the only way fans outside the US have been able to see the additional scenes. Averted with the handful of episodes that aired on PBS in edited (or slightly censored) versions, since the unaltered versions of those (one of which was the 2017 Christmas special, which had an entire subplot trimmed for PBS broadcast) are readily available online and on the DVD/Blu-ray.
• No Export for You: As detailed in Deleted Scene, most episodes as broadcast in the US on PBS feature scenes not included in the ITV broadcasts. As of 2017 the only way to see these scenes outside of broadcast is to view them online on the PBS website. This streaming service is only available to Americans (despite Canadians making up a large percentage of PBS' supporters), rendering the scenes officially available only to US viewers and not to Canadian, UK, etc. where the only commercial release on DVD, Blu-ray and third-party streaming has been of the edited-down ITV versions. Inverted in relation to the first two episodes of Series 1 and the Series 2 Christmas special, both of which actually had scenes removed for the PBS broadcast, but those scenes were included in the DVD release.
• The Other Darrin: King Louis Philippe is played by Bruno Wolkowitch in Series 2 and Vincent Regan in Series 3.
• Quietly Cancelled: The last episode aired in 2019. ITV confirmed in 2021, amid cancellation rumors, that there are no immediate plans to produce the fourth of what was initially expected to be six seasons. No word on the show's future has been made since then.
• Romance on the Set: Jenna Coleman and Tom Hughes began dating around the time Series 1 entered pre-production.
• Teasing Creator: In the lead-up to Series 1, showrunner Daisy Goodwin, as well as cast members such as Jenna Coleman, were very teasing in interviews about how Hotter and Sexier the series would be compared to past renditions of Victoria's story. Given that most historic dramas aired in the UK are sexually explicit (i.e. White Queen, Outlander, The Tudors), this led to the assumption that Victoria would be the same. Ultimately, however, although indeed still "hotter and sexier" compared to past biographies of the queen, Victoria surprised fans by being family-friendly and PG/12-rated, despite airing post-Watershed. Backfired a bit with some critics and viewers who wanted explicitness and accused the show of pulling its punches.
• Watershed: In the UK, the series airs post-watershed on ITV, however it averts the tropes associated with the concept by remaining family-friendly through its first two seasons, never going beyond a 12 (or TV-PG) rating. Creator Daisy Goodwin, in a 2016 for the Daily Mail, explained that this is intentional, as she is a believer that shows do not need to be sexually explicit in order to tell their stories - even a story such as Victoria's early life in which sexuality played a major role. Illustrated with a scene in Series 1 in which Victoria is shown taking a bath - but does so fully clothed. Although this is Truth in Television for the era, it's hard to imagine a similar show produced for HBO or Netflix or BBC One avoiding nudity. Technically, the show airs post-watershed on PBS in the US as well, though in order to allow all broadcast episodes to retain a TV-PG rating, a minor bit of male nudity ended up being blurred from a Series 2 episode.

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