18-Part 'The Crown Meets Bridgerton' Series Is Hands Down Netflix's Best Historical Drama

Published Nov 14, 2026, 9:30 PM EST

Memory Ngulube joined Screen Rant in April 2024 as part of the Movies and TV team. Since then, she has written for the Perennials and Streaming team, covering a wide range of topics from new releases to old movies and TV shows. Memory is currently a Classic TV writer. 

Before joining Screen Rant, Memory was a freelance copywriter who specialized in email marketing and social media management. While she enjoyed her job, her true passion was always movies and TV.

When she isn’t writing for Screen Rant, Memory can be found reading, baking (which is one of her passions), or watching her favorite K-drama.

When The Crown premiered on Netflix in 2016, it immediately piqued audience interest. After all, who doesn't love a show that delves into the lives of one of the world's most powerful families? The beloved historical drama didn't survive unscathed, but overall, it performed well with audiences and critics alike. To this day, The Crown is considered to be one of Netflix’s best period dramas.

Bridgerton, on the other hand, gained popularity thanks to its steamy, heartfelt romances and alternate-history Regency-era setting. Though not based on a true story, the Shonda Rhimes show is magnetic, offering viewers diverse, tantalizing romances and family drama. While it's not as popular as Bridgerton or The Crown, Netflix's German original series The Empress is a beautiful, intriguing series that combines the best elements from both shows.

Chronicling Empress Elisabeth’s life in the 19th century, this dramatized true story is an absolute joy to watch, elevated by its compelling protagonist and sordid royal drama. The Empress is by no means as steamy as Bridgerton, but matches the period drama’s swoon-worthy romantic focus. With the show’s final season now streaming on Netflix, The Empress deserves its flowers, more so because each installment is better than the last and has something important to say about mental health, women’s rights, and autonomy.

The Empress On Netflix Has No Bad Season

Many TV shows start with a bang and promise great things to come. However, as they add more seasons and episodes, they fall off and lose the elements that made them so addictive in the first place. The Empress, however, is different. The period drama’s first installment earned an impressive 85% Rotten Tomatoes audience score, while its second season’s nearly perfect 92% RT audience rating proved the series was getting better.

The Empress is so charming and watchable largely because of its layered, well-developed main character. In The Empress season 1, Elisabeth is a naive girl who believes she has finally found her happily-ever-after ending when she marries Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. By season 2, Austria is at war, and the Empress begins to hate her life as her duties take their toll. The show's third and final season, however, is a true masterpiece.

Elisabeth, now grown and weary in The Empress season 3, does what she does best: whatever she wants. The titular Empress has a vulnerability and fierceness in the show's final run that reminds audiences why they fell in love with her in the first place. Sure, her and Franz's marriage isn't always as strong, but their love endures, mostly because they bring out the best in each other.

The Empress Avoids The Crown's Biggest Problem

Image via Netflix

Numerous movies and TV shows have dissected the British royal family, so fictionalizing their lives is nothing new. However, given how ubiquitous the royals are, it isn't always easy to handle their stories delicately, especially for a series like The Crown. It invited a lot of controversy during its run. Even beloved British icon Dame Judi Dench criticized the successful series, calling it “crude sensationalism” (via Entertainment Weekly).

The events depicted in the Netflix series were still relatively new, or at least recent enough for people to remember — even during the first few seasons, which dramatized Queen Elizabeth II’s earliest years as a monarch. There is archival footage of her reign. People knew where they were when she was married, when she was crowned. This issue worsened as the show went on. The backlash was inevitable.

Like Queen Elizabeth II, Empress Elisabeth was revered. As such, her story still fascinates people, which is why it’s been widely documented and examined. Still, Elisabeth was born in 1837 and died in 1898. That creates a safe distance and room for creative expression. Audiences were (and are) unlikely to scrutinize The Empress to the same extent as The Crown. The Crown couldn't avoid being put under a microscope. Many of the people the show talks about are still alive — and their legacy is more precarious than ever.

All three seasons of The Empress are streaming now on Netflix.

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  Devrim Lingnau

  Empress Elisabeth 'Sisi' von Wittelsbach

• Philip Froissant

  Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary