Who’s binging THE CROWN, tomorrow?

Not binging, but fuck yeah I'll be watching.

To binge means to overindulge, usually for a brief period.

Both binging and bingeing are acceptable, according to dictionaries. However, around 1980, retaining the E became distinctly more popular than dropping it, according to Google Ngram Viewer

Wish it were starting tonight when I need a distraction.

I'm waiting a while. The first week is usually lots of spotty reception because everyone wants to watch it all at once.

This show is muck-raking fiction.

And we would reject a sleaze ball who makes similarly-muck-raking fictional show about the Obama family.

Did someone say Der Bingle?

[quote] Who’s binging THE CROWN

I'll bing the crown when the crown bings on me.

The Maul has photos from the "premiere" tonight in London. Imelda looks goofy in a tux and Emma Thompson's hair.

^ That camel-woman looks even worse.

We're bonging the Crown Jewels of Maui.

Who is staying up to watch it?

It won't land until three am eastern. Not bloody me!

It drops at three!.

It drops into the toilet at three-fifteen.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I'm going to wait until the weekend so I can watch the entire thing stoned. Just like season 4.

Oh, yes. "The Croon."

I play Mountbatten. I'm a jolly rogerer in it. Tykes galore.

OP, I promised I would take care of your Crown Cake for your big party, didn't I?

The coronation is months away.

So relax, Charles. Please.

It's not getting good reviews.

Especially Dominic West as Charles.

I was worried about Debicki as Diana but she is as good as Emma Corrin, which is a relief.

I wish they had set this to launch on a Sunday. I binged the whole series in one day last time.

I will save episodes 2 through 10 for the weekend

I’ll be watching, but I’m not binging, I can’t watch more than two episodes of something without getting bored. I’ll try to watch just one or two episodes a week. Interesting how much bad press it has received before it was even released this time. Was camp Charles in any way responsible seeing as how he’ll likely be portrayed in a less than flattering light?

2 episodes in:

Jonny Lee Miller takes acting honours as steely, observant John Major who has everyone’s number.

Speaking of casting the actor for what they can bring rather than their resemblance to the real life counterpart, on the other hand, Dominic West is way too debonair and confident as Charles.

Elizabeth Debicki overdoes the head-tucking but she’s excellent.

Imelda Staunton is already superior to Olivia Colman’s sketch comedy performance. She retains some of her own innate comic timing but seems more authentically the Elizabeth of Claire Foy.

Jonathan Price doesn’t have the statuesque build of Matt Smith and Tobias Menzies but he has Prince Philip’s undercurrent of bullish empathy.

After all the hype, I find it quite boring overall.

Agree with all R22's points... not much to add. The Diana explosion gesture made me laugh out loud. I like Staunton more than I imagined, except in close up. She just looks so much like Imelda Staunton, dressed up at the Queen. In medium and long shots she's entirely convincing. The voice is good.

My big criticism is the heavy handed script. I kept expecting Britannia to sink under the weight of the subtext.

Oh and a DL moment of breathing freedom and peace... I laughed aloud.

R22, I agree with every word you wrote!

I’m enjoying this so far, and have many observations, some of which I might share later on.

Did Dominic have something stuck in his teeth during the filming of the series? He constantly sucks on his teeth! It's interesting that they're leaning heavier into the earlier seasons for callbacks in terms of cast. It certainly does feel like Staunton's Queen is more of a continuation of Foy's Queen compared to Colman's.

Dominic West as Charles is unsettling at first, but it’s starting to settle in quite well. As confident as West is overall, he’s beginning to bring to the surface, the quagmire of pettiness and insecurities that make Charles the man he was then, and in many ways, remains, presently.

JFC, Jonny Lee Miller is still sexy AF, isn’t he?

I have to admit the opening scenes in episode 6 are powerful, they didn't hold back on what happened to the Romanovs.

I've been skipping around with the episodes--I've yet to see episodes 2 and 3, and am mostly focusing first of the Charles and Diana stuff since that's what interests me most. I'll go back and watch the episodes about Philip and Mohamed el-Fayed later.

SPOILERS

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I agree Imelda Staunton is more like Claire Foy than Olivia Colman, but I think she suffers from the fact that both Foy and Colman are so instantly likeable and Staunton is just not. She has a very good scene where she lightens up considerably by having tea with William for the first time when he starts Eton, though. She does bring the gravity and bearing to the role that Colman lacked (Colman always seems like a middle- to lower-class woman no matter what she does--it was quite funny when she worked that to effect in "The Favourite" as Queen Anne, but it was her biggest drawback to playing Elizabeth II, although she was genuinely moving or scary or funny in many episodes.)

Debicki is great. I love that they're leaning in this season much more into how manipulative and selfish Diana could be... there's a very funny bit when she meets Dr. Hasnat Khan for the first time when she's with her beloved masseuse whose husband is having heart surgery in hosipital, and she keeps harping on how attractive Khan is to her poor friend who is only thinking of her dangerously ill husband. I also forgot that when she used to go "incognito" while driving in the London streets or sneaking around (with a baseball cap and dark glasses) to visit people she always dressed ridiculously conspicuously in bright primary colors. She's very different from Corrin but she's equally successful. It's funny how neither actress (although they are both great beauties) is as photogenic as Diana was. (I like that she has a slight case of strabismus just like Diana did--both women's eyes do not point perfectly together, but are just very slightly off.) Her skinniness is sometimes distracting because her clothes do not fit as beautifully as Diana's always did.

Jonathan Pryce has much less of the military bearing of Menzies, but is much more steely--frequently humiliating Charles by openly berating him in front of the Queen and their staff. The hardest thing for me has not been Debicki's tallness in terms of the physical appearance of the cast or even Dominic West's roguish physical attractiveness but rather Pryce's shortness.

West despite his attractiveness (he has a magnificent ass) and his tendency to smile much too often does better than I thought. He gets to wear some of the most beautiful glen plaid suits I have ever seen in my life (and unlike Debicki's dresses they fit him beautifully).

Manville is great in her big episode with Timothy Dalton. She gets the snobbery and the misery of Margaret, and is great when she revivivfies under Dalton's attention and becomes the life of the party at the reunion of his former regiment.

Senan West is very interesting as William. I remember him at this age as always smiling and laughing in public, but they have him constantly brooding, always watching his mother and being constantly afraid someone will disrespect her or hurt her feelings. (cont.)

(cont.) So far the two best are overall Olivia Williams as Camilla (who is even more nauseatingly obsequious to Charles, but who suffers greatly when she and her husband separate after "Tampon-gate" and when the press starts hounding her) and Claudia Harrison who plays Anne. There's a great scene where she goes to tell her mother that she's marrying Timothy Laurence, and her mother tries to tell her she can't, and Anne just won't have any of it--she announces she's spent her life in uncomplaining service to duty to the Firm and that her marriage is her own affair, and she just walks right out of the room, and that's that. That's probably much like what actually happened. There are clear parallels between her and Erin Doherty whom everyone loved so much the last two seasons as Anne--she uses a very funny brisk and blunt way of speaking, like Doherty used, but she almost always is careful after she tells a loved one exactly their failings to also support them.

Interesting supporting role I had not heard about: they have a dishy actor (to use Diana's adjective) to play Charles Earl Spencer who looks much like him but handsomer. They've also got a great lookalike playing Andrew. Fergie is talked about but has almost no lines. Harry so far has almost no lines.

R10 that is a lot more exiting than The Crown, and all those guys needed to do was put some ice cubes in the device to cool the smoke.. health recommendations aside-it would be even more interesting if all the cast members in the crown would use that bong device and film it

If Jonathan Price is in a film or a series or anything for that matter, I’m definitely gonna watch it

r24 I laughed out loud when I watched that. One of the scriptwriters is CLEARLY a DLer!

Did anybody else get a sense in episode one that the Queen Mother was meant to be portrayed as slightly senile? And why would they do that?

Staunton cannot help but look like one of her nether parts is twisted in her underwear.

Labially speaking.

[quote]Did anybody else get a sense in episode one that the Queen Mother was meant to be portrayed as slightly senile?

Yes.

[quote]And why would they do that?

Because she was. She was 91-96 y. o. when this season takes place, and did not have all her marbles.

Peter Morgan already treated her as dotty in "The Queen," which took place in late 1997.

One thing I really liked was that in the first episode the Queen explains to John Major how much [italic]HMY Britannia[/italic] means to her because it is an expression of her inmost self--which is exactly what the Queen mocked Charles to his face about saying when he extolled what Highgrove meant to him in the "Favorites" episode.

The casting is almost universally off. I'm struggling to think of anyone who melted into their character.

A real twist would be to have season 5 end in a similar way to Once Upon A Time in Hollywood - Diana could survive the crash.

Imelda Staunton looks as though she should be working in the kitchen. She sounds appropriate but she has a very common face.

I'm really starting to think they should have spent more time in the Claire Foy phase and ended with Olivia Colman and the Silver Jubilee. So much of their narrative has been exposed as bullshitting... it just seems like this one is staggering along. The writing stands out to me as particularly obvious this time round.

Balmoral looks like a cottage at Balmoral, not the real thing.

[quote]Who’s bungling THE CROWN tomorrow?

Probably my son.

Did we really need a whole episode on the al Fayeds?

I find the writing so heavy handed. I don't know if the media coverage hammering bias and truth stretching is biasing me, but it just feels like every bit of subtext is delivered with a sledgehammer. I know a fair amount about royal history - not to claim expertise but I've read a ton of biographies - they really didn't need to gild the lily. There was drama enough without going overboard. I'm left flat.

Considering what's to come, yes. Al-Fayed will no doubt be the big villain in season 6.

I hope in Season 6 we get to see Mohamed unveil the hilariously awful statue of Diana and Dodi in the main Harrod's.

[quote] A real twist would be to have season 5 end in a similar way to Once Upon A Time in Hollywood - Diana could survive the crash.

Even better, have her blow up Balmoral with the entire BRF in it, like the end of "Inglorious Basterds."

Oh god, one whole episode about the trashy Fayeds was ridiculous. They are at most a footnote in QE's reign.

Debicki's so good at evoking Diana.

Dominic West is way too hot to play Charles.

Oliver Chris, who plays Diana’s friend James Colthurst, played Prince William in King Charles III

I’ve only watched the first two episodes but one thing that I find really grating is the dialogue where people decades ago use current day vernacular. Very poorly edited script which undoes the visual production values which are pretty spectacular.

I'm seeing critics say it's boring. Which I find confusing. It's no more exciting or boring than the previous ones.

I don't like the casting at all. I don't get the feel of the RF as I have in other seasons. So far I have only watched the first ep and it is boring.

Also Debicki replicated Diana's voice and mannerisms even better than Corrin.

The casting is great aside from West. That's mostly cause he is way too handsome and suave to fully emulate Charles but his acting is fine.

Imelda's QE voice was near perfection, but her face was really downstairs. Debicki was surprisingly amazing as Diana, though. She looked beautifully neurotic and bonkers all the time. The Diana voice was awesome too.

Don’t British productions require a certain level of diversity casting in their productions? Perhaps the extensive Fayed scenes were meant to cover that requirement?

The dialogue has been awful.

"You remember Lenora?"/"Oh yes, the child with cancer." Purely explanatory

"Is Balmoral your favorite place?"/"No, there is one other." Again, just using unatural character interactions to educate the audience.

And it IS boring. The abdication drama is dull. TQ died. We know it never happened. It isn't showing us a behind the scenes look at HOW an abdication took place, just drama for dramas sake.

At least the first season was a dramatized BTS look at how TQ was crowned and how she felt. This is just crap.

[quote] Because she was. She was 91-96 y. o. when this season takes place, and did not have all her marbles. Peter Morgan already treated her as dotty in "The Queen," which took place in late 1997.

I met the Queen Mother in 1989, which was just at the time when Major became Prime Minister, and she seemed very much compos mentis.

Half way through: Charles comes off rather well this season. Not perfect and a bit self-pitying, (so...accurate) but the fact that he actually acted on his progressive ideals to great effect for others with the Prince's Trust reflected well on him. The Camillagate tape put in context was kind of adorable; highlighted how well suited Charles and Camilla are.

Who the hell is playing Prince Philip? That's the worst casting decision in the history of entertainment.

QM had all her marbles at her 100th birthday celebration. She looks perfectly cogent below. You don't drag a marbleless old woman to an hour long parade and hope for the best.

[quote]I met the Queen Mother in 1989, which was just at the time when Major became Prime Minister, and she seemed very much compos mentis.

My father seemed compos mentis two years before he developed the signs of dementia.

R59 That “there is one other” line made me think of Star Wars.

I FFd most of Mou Mou but the scene between him and Diana was pretty hilarious.

I really think the Diana story has been beaten to death. I just want to FF reality and get some gossipy shows on Will, Kate and the cousins.

I wish they would take the series up to the present day.

When I clicked to watch it it immediately went to where I last stopped on a rewatch. It was a childhood flashback scene from series1 and for a minute I thought it was the new series playing.

As a result, I went from watching a few minutes of series 1 before switching to 5, and therefore got an immediate side-by-side comparison between the two. The quality has fallen so far that it was genuinely shocking to me.

I bailed on the al Fayed episode after a few minutes. I really couldn't give a shit about them.

Imelda is a good actress but it’s HARD to imagine the the Queen from season 1 grew into the Queen of season 5.

That would only happen if her face got rain over by an apple truck…I don’t remember that happening .

R69 But that’s also reflective of the monarchy as a whole as well, so some of that is stylistic.

It's corny. Staunton grows on me each episode. The principals rise above the material, which is not well written.

I did laugh out loud at Staunton's Miss Piggy face when TQ was seeing the Sarah toe pictures.

I miss the old days of official threads, which were clear where the conversation was taking place, not searching through various preexisting threads. Why doesn’t that happen anymore?

[quote] Mou Mou

Are you talking about Lord Mountbatten?

Can't have those anymore, r75. The Meghanbots came in and intentionally destroyed the Dangling Tendrils and "BRF Number X" serialised and centralised threads to disperse the commenters, derail the conversation., and hopefully thereby dilute the amount of criticism of Meghan. Not sure it actually worked, but that was why they don't happen anymore: they're spam-reported and nuked by Meghan fans and Meghan bots.

The more you stay with the season, the more you get used to the new actors. It is pretty jarring at first.

There's a great long scene in the second-to-last episode this season where Charles comes to Kensington Palace after the divorce is finalized to have an amicable talk with Diana, and she makes him an omelet (which turns out to be scrambled eggs because she can't really cook). They start out nice but then the conversation goes awry, and it ends badly--it's excellent work both from Debicki and West both. You're left thinking they never had any business marrying because they are both so emotionally needy they could not possibly give the other what they wanted. (It does make a little sad none of the episodes devote any time to Diana's relationship with her mother, which was such a tortured one.)

Elisabeth Debicki really gives the best performance of the season--I hope she wins an Emmy. Corrin was excellent at bringing out the shy, frightened, eager-to-please Diana from the early 80s, but Debicki plays Diana as we remember her best: neurotic, clever, and seemingly with everything on the surface (although she's actually quite manipulative). She's also really quite funny, and kept making me laugh out loud by doing something unexpected (like the explosion gesture in the first episode).

One thing I really liked about the 2-part episode involving the Panorama interview with Martin Bashir is that they do a great job showing how the BRF and the Establishment that supported them saw Diana at the time as completely unhinged and even dangerous (to herself and others), even though at the time almost everyone outside their circle who saw that interview (including myself) had all their sympathies with her. There's a very funny performance in the second of the 2 episodes by James Cordery as Marmaduke "Dukey" Hussey, the elderly and self-important head of the BBC at the time, who was completely blindsided by the interview.

[quote] Are you talking about Lord Mountbatten?

The third episode of this season, which is all about Mohamed al-Fayed's rise, is called "Mou Mou."

I watched the first two seasons and then lost interest. Now, of course, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

Following Diana, Princess of Wales into the tunnel in Paris?

Recreating the Bashir interview?

No thank you.

Bashir IS an appalling creep.

[quote] QM had all her marbles at her 100th birthday celebration. She looks perfectly cogent below. You don't drag a marbleless old woman to an hour long parade and hope for the best.

You're just set up a straw man to demolish.

She had lost SOME of her marbles in her 90s, but no one anywhere on this thread claimed she was "marbleless" by then.

[quote] I miss the old days of official threads, which were clear where the conversation was taking place, not searching through various preexisting threads. Why doesn’t that happen anymore?

Oh Georgy, how I long for the old days!

The DL actually never was meant to have "official threads" about anything and they're still annoying as fuck.

I think it's really boring. Good performances, overall, but badly written.

R78 interesting factoid (don’t know if they cover it as I’m only on ep 3) - Marmaduke Hussey’s wife (now widow) is Lady Susan Hussey, who was senior lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth II.

Fun fact... the actress playing Susan Hussey also plays Camilla in The Windsors...

[quote]Marmaduke Hussey’s wife (now widow) is Lady Susan Hussey, who was senior lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth II.

As a young pencil-dialer I wrote to the Queen and received a letter back from "Susan Hussey, lady in-waiting" assuring me the Queen received my kind letter and thanked me for it.

The Fergie toe thing was a wasted opportunity and an odd choice. The story broke when she was at Balmoral with the entire family. Talk about tension.

Similarly, Diana: Her True Story landed with a whimper. They could have done a whole episode just dealing with serialization and publication.

Odd writing choices.

So many talk of the written being bad. Seems fine to me and similar to previous seasons. The pace of the episodes is a bit slower than the last 2 seasons but not as slow as season 1. The first few episodes of that moved at a glacial pace. Obviously the new cast takes getting used to just like season 3.

[quote][R78] interesting factoid (don’t know if they cover it as I’m only on ep 3) - Marmaduke Hussey’s wife (now widow) is Lady Susan Hussey, who was senior lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth II.

They do cover it.

Lady Susan Hussey appears on the show, played by Hayden Gwynne--who also played Margaret Thatcher in Peter Morgan's "The Audience" in the West End, and who plays the memorably evil Camilla on "The Windsors."

As other posts have said, some of the writing is heavy handed but not overly so and other season were like that too. Also that seems to be Morgan's writing style. I expect it.

In the "Ipatiev House" episode, Elizabeth II refers to herself hysterically as Philip's "soulmate," which also seems a shoutout to DL.

Watching episode 1. It is interesting to see the crazy Charles and Diana lifestyle depicted. So far Diana is an emotional handful. The actress is good, but distractingly bony. I wish she had another eight pounds, she'd be just right then.

Right out of the gate, the theme is the cost and relevancy of the monarchy. Then shoehorning in something about Ukraine. Torn from the headlines!

As I figured: Harry is barely in the season. The performance of Diana was a highlight but the writing for Charles was more well-rounded: he's whiney and over eager to be top dog, but more often than not he's the Lone Sane Man/Audience Substitute just by virtue of his veiws being the most progressive and because he's the only one doesn't take the monarchy's continued existing for granted.

At Balmoral, all seemed to breathe freedom and peace, and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.

The opening with the Romanov's was brutal to watch. Definitely one of the most gruesome scenes on this show.

I've watched 8 episodes and I can't get used to Imelda Staunton. She is common as someone said up thread, but more than that she has no energy. She seems like a dull uncurious old woman. There's no energy to her characterization. If someone cast her as The Queen Mother she'd have managed it perfectly. She really was miscast. I like Dominic West as Prince Charles. Debicki is a good Diana, but her eyes bother me. They bulge.

Notes after watching the first two episodes:

Elizabeth Debicki is quite good, but she is so tall and lanky. Basically a gorgeous giraffe.

Dominic West is miscasting of the first order; he looks like an aging James Bond, and, worse, he and Diana actually seem to belong together, where Charles and Diana never did.

Flashing back to Claire Foy was a bad idea, because it reminded everyone how good Miss Foy was in the role. Imelda Staunton is another fine actor who is miscast here.

Lesley Manville as Margaret — gimme more of that.

Could the scriptwriters be more heavyhanded in comparing the old warship Britannia with the old warhorse Elizabeth? We get it, we get it.

Things about which I give not one shit: Prince Philip's carriage hobby and the dead kid.

Agree with the poster above that we should have seen the reaction in the family after Andrew Morton's book was published rather than the half-hour leading up to it.

Imelda Staunton first came to my attention in the phenomenal Vera Drake, a role, for me, she’ll always be identified with. Thus, all I see is a back alley abortionist in the role of the Queen.

I let out a gasp of delight when the Windsors showed up in Mou Mou. Those roles are perfectly cast.

Are they using the term “The System” in place of the term “The Firm?” And if so, why? It can’t possibly be copyrighted as belonging to the Windsors?

Did Philip have an affair with the blond lady with the dead child?

Rather than being dotty, I think they are portaying the Queen Mother as an old royal pain in the ass esp. To Princess Margaret.

Isn’t Helena Bonham-Carter basically the same age as the character of Margaret during this period anyways? They should have just kept her on for the role. And why are they portraying her as such a dyke this season?

Dominic West should not have played a gay Hollywood silent screen star in Britain and Prince Charles in the same year. I keep waiting for Gay valet Thomas to show up and kiss him.

I think Dominic West has done an AMAZING job emulating Charles' mannerisms and voice and in certain lighting he almost is Charles. However, other times he just looks like a handsome man who can imitate Charles.

I thought Emma Corrin was unforgettable as Diana. But Elisabeth Debicki has indeed made me forget her.

When I see Jonathan Pryce the only thing I see is the old person Madonna is trying so desperately hard not to be.

Was Bashir as skeevy in real life as he is portrayed in the show?

I’m not in a rush to watch this. The mixed reviews don’t help and I’m kinda tired of hearing about Princess Diana. After that awful Spencer movie they just need to let her rest.

r112 why would we care to hear that you're not watching in a thread asking who is watching?

[quote] The actress is good, but distractingly bony.

The actress looks like a camel.

I’m on episode three and I am fucking ASTOUNDED by Elisabeth Debicki’s performance. How is Peter Morgan getting these performances out of these actresses?

Towards the end of episode 8, when Diana curtseys for the Queen after their discussion, did they CGI Debicki's face as the Diana resemblance in that moment was insane!

Dominic West is totally miscast as Charles.

For some reason, I'm finding this season boring. I also don't like Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip. Debicki is great as Diana but too bony, and Dominic West is too handsome and robust looking as Charles.

To add to my comments above: I am surprised that, watching this season, I am nauseated by the amount of privilege these people have due to an accident of birth. For example, "protecting" the Queen from that newspaper article. I thought she was so tough? I found it particularly offensive how the Queen pressured PM John Major to pay for their yacht. These fuckers have hundreds of millions of dollars in private monies-- pay for it yourself, you cunt. If I were British, I would want the monarchy abolished in order to get rid of all these spongers.

Why are the reviewers saying this season of the Crown sucks?

It's just fine,.

Oliver Chris is sexy AF

Yes that’s a good description of Imelda. She plays “common” well. That’s not a bad thing. It’s why she was well reviewed as Mrs Lovett and Rose. But it’s not a Queen.

They should have shelled out the big bucks and hired Helen Mirren back

[quote]The opening with the Romanov's was brutal to watch. Definitely one of the most gruesome scenes on this show.

After all the hype I was expecting more, somehow, something so excessive and violent it would cause a stir. Was it any worse than this? (Also Netflix.)

[quote]Could the scriptwriters be more heavyhanded in comparing the old warship Britannia with the old warhorse Elizabeth? We get it, we get it.

It's doesn't stop there, but that was definitely the worst. I thought Britannia might keel over.

Wow, they are going to make McNulty an absolute prick as Charles aren’t they. This season is going to be so uncomfortable to watch. Imelda is way too sharp as the Queen. She’ll probably be fun to watch but so far I’m not buying it. Debicki is scary good as Diana, she’ll definitely get an Emmy. Jonny Lee Miller seems cramped as John Major in the first ep. Maybe he’ll loosen up more. I’m already loving Leslie Manville as an exceedingly louche and drunk Margaret. Was the queen mother so dotty at this point? I’m kind of disappointed how they made an effort with the queen mother the first two seasons and then she just disappeared. This is historical fiction. Write something for her!

[quote] Who the hell is playing Prince Philip? That's the worst casting decision in the history of entertainment.

It’s Jonathan Pryce a well awarded and talented actor, but I agree he’s totally wrong for Phillip. Pryce reads as an effeminate intellectual, something Phillip was not. At all.

[quote] I think Dominic West has done an AMAZING job emulating Charles' mannerisms and voice and in certain lighting he almost is Charles.

I agree he’s got it down, but he’s almost too well known to do this. He’s done so may big series in America, it’s hard to see him disappear into Charles. I just see him as the asshole from The Affair and McNulty from The Wire. I’m not sure why any big actor would want to play Charles, especially in the later years when it was clear Morgan was going to make him a villain.

[quote]I found it particularly offensive how the Queen pressured PM John Major to pay for their yacht.

Ok, now I'm really gonna blog.

That's the problem with what Morgan has done with this show... his liberties are so excessive they shift perceptions (potentially) harmfully about something that's real and exists. Will the world end? No. But is there a responsibility to show restraint in certain circumstances? I think so when you go to such an effort to make so much else seem authentic and correct.

Like the Queen Mary and Romanovs bit. Total fiction. There has not been any suggestion by biographers or historians Queen Mary played any part in that decision or what her view would have been if she had. The British interest in extricating the Romanovs was dead by August of 1917, before they were shipped to Siberia the following October. It is unlikely among their last words would be the idea the Cousin Georgie had come to the rescue.

There is nothing to suggest the Queen sought funding for the repair of Britannia let alone as cluelessly and greedily as it was portrayed in that episode, but that's what Morgan wanted to do and that's how Staunton then played it. (Notwithstanding it would be a huge violation of the principles and precedents of the relationship between the monarch and the PM and public money, it's the kind of thing that would have been negotiated by the Keeper of the Privy Purse, to keep the monarch out of it.) Now, would it be less shit to make up a scene where the monarch told Privy to find the money for the boat? Much less so. And if Morgan wanted to make the Queen look greedy or cheap he still could have done it but would have done so without appearing to calculate and manipulate for maximum damage, so you don't get posts like I found if offensive when the Queen. It's a fair reaction. Many people will take it on faith.

These are all big events. He has hugely talented casts. He could have managed an engaging and critically acclaimed drama with restraint as easily as excess. Peter Morgan knows better and that's what bugs me. If he wants to stick the knife in and twist, OK, but at least do it fairly.

My problem with West is my problem with Colman: their vivid brown eyes prevent them from disappearing into the part. We are watching West and Colman play the part, at least I am. Both performances were great, but to me those dominant eyes were a distraction.

[quote] Peter Morgan … wants to stick the knife in.…

Just like slimy Bashir wanted to stick the knife in.

R128 thank you for your measured reminder that this is highly fictionalized (I was the poster who was offended by what appeared to be the Queen's greediness). However, I think seeing the degree of privilege onscreen still was surprising for me; I know they are privileged but seeing it portrayed in action is another thing.

Which again, R131, is the harm of it. It didn't happen but looks believable.

FWIW, the yacht didn't exist solely to float the Queen up to Scotland. It also took her to the Mediterranean for her annual fig picking excursion and Princess Margaret went to Mexico on it each year for her cock and donkey binges. (deleted Morgan script, episode 4.)

But it was used a lot by government and for trade and "made more than 700 visits to countries in the British Commonwealth and across the world." "In addition to being a home for the family, however, it also had a diplomatic role, serving as a base for state visits and later for trade missions. Indeed, the State Dining Room, the grandest room onboard, was the scene of numerous formal banquets involving many illustrious guests, ranging from Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher to Presidents Reagan, Clinton, Mandela, and Yeltsin, who were all entertained there." Too bad Morgan didn't know about Googling, he might have done a better job.

^ Thank you again for this interesting info-- much appreciated (guess I should have used the Google!)

R131... not ragging on you... and why should you? You weren't paid a bucket of money to write or watch the thing! That's the point. Morgan writes this and ships it out there and people take it in good faith. He's smarter than that.

The Crown is the ONLY good show that I've ever watched on Netflix.

Everything else I've ever seen is Mediocre whether it's a comedy from France or a crime drama from Finland. Their foreign shows are just as mediocre as their American fare.

I used to love the European content but I'm giving up Netflix for awhile after I finish the Crown. I'll come back but I cycle through the streamers now. Netflix's overall quality has declined.

The decommissioning of HMY Britannia was a political move and the Queen was, understandably, furious about the entire situation. It was a promise the Tories made as part of their campaign, and obviously a populist anti-monarchist move, and she was forced into the middle of it against her will.

(Tangentially, someone on another royal thread mentioned that they thought back in the mid 1990s that there was a large anti-royal movement in the UK, and they got chewed out for saying that, but they weren't wrong. Part of the reason many Americans believed that is because the press here in the US framed the decommissioning promise and ultimate Tory win as a sign that the UK was getting tired of the royals.)

Since the decommissioning, Tories have insisted, when the topic comes up, that it was necessary for the taxpayers and also a blow against royal misspending of taxpayer money. Some of this is because there was quite a backlash when the Queen was seen visibly upset in public when the yacht was decommissioned, and people started to feel badly about what had happened.

There have also been quite a few complaints that the Queen only shows emotion when her toys are being taken away, that the emotion she showed at Aberfan was fake because she didn't care, while being upset about the Britannia showed her true nature.

If Morgan has invented an entire false story about the Queen being greedy and needing to be put in her place, it's deliberate anti-royal pro-Tory propaganda, probably. The whole scenario was one of the Tory PM saying "it's a recession, we need to care about the people" while the Queen basically had a hissy fit, and then of course there was the whole metaphor of the Britannia needing to be put down because it's old and damaged like the Queen.

It's playing to a very specific person, but it's also deliberately misinforming people who don't know anything about the history of these events and believe, because so much on the show is true to life, most everything is. Every day someone on Twitter will say The Crown is not fiction and play a clip of a real-life event next to the Crown reenactment as proof that everything is true. It's irritating.

And it may have only been written this way because Morgan wanted scandal and attention, not because he was trying to pull anything over on the audience.

R123 its definitely gruesome for this show. Seeing people get shot in the head and stabbed to death isn't content a show about royals having lengthy discussions in fancy rooms is known for.

Even without knowing all the details of the Britannia affair, the scene with QEll beginning a meeting with John Major with a demand for money would have been uncharacteristically churlish and petty. We're already working hard to accept Staunton in the role, then the script has her acting like a defensive, insecure Karen.

I wouldn't mind some fictionalization if the show was creating a believable, entertaining portrayal of the BRF, but except for Diana, the acting is so EFFORTFUL. The pacing and events are plodding.--the first episode anyway.

I'm 3 episodes in. Trying not to binge too quickly so I can savor it. It's fantastic! I had doubts about the casting going into it, but everyone is amazing. It took me a bit to get into Pryce as Philip, but the second episode changed my mind. Although he doesn't resemble Philip, he captures his essence.

I would like to thank Britain for giving us this enduring soap opera. I'm sure it's absolutely hell living it, but it's so much fun watching it. Please never go away, Royal Family.

Agreed about Jonathan Pryce as Prince Phillip. It took me a couple of episodes to warm up to him but by the time he lights into the Queen Mother in episode five, I was well in his camp. I have no problem with any of the casting whatsoever.

Does anyone know if Princess Margaret actually reunited with Peter Townshend as shown on the series? I'm hoping that was a slice of real life, it's the type of closure that does immense good for a person in their later years. I would have wanted that for Margaret.

Leslie Manville killed that scene with Elizabeth where she compared her situation to that of the Princess Royal and Tim Laurence.

This is now one of my favorite television shows of all time.

[quote]They should have shelled out the big bucks and hired Helen Mirren back

Helen Mirren's performance actually has not aged well.

Why did we need to spend so much time with Philip trying to cheer up the blonde lady with her renovated horse buggy? Were they trying to make Philip into a more sympathetic character?

I am watching for the cinematography now. Tjose big sweeping overhead shots and the execution of axenes like the carriage ride through the atream and around the bridge footings. Beautifully shot and vivid colours. Screw the storyline.

[quote]Although he doesn't resemble Philip, he captures his essence.

He quickly became one of my favourites... you're right, nothing like Philip physically (I'd wanted Charles Dance as P instead of Mountbatten), but he does capture the essence of him... esp. the cadence... the irritation with the TV crew was so Philip.

Staunton is growing on me too... the voice and cadence again... but she just looks so like Imelda Staunton.

Leslie Mainville's scene about Townsend was excellent but I felt like the script let the Queen down... it was a different time, a different place. The scene between the sisters, at the end, was lovely.

R141, Anne Glenconner says they lunched. The whole ball scenario looks like a complete invention, but that's one where it worked because it was kindly. Margaret sort of reverted to that young girl of Vanesssa Kirbydom.... if you're going to make shit up about people you might at least make them look good.

Can I just offer that this thread at present is a delight? (Unless I've got them on block) none of resident know it alls are talking down to everybody like they will here and on the Gilded Age threads. It's just a bunch of (I'm guess) eldergays and eldergays adjacent, exchanging thoughts and impressions (even differing) and information without getting snide or having to score the win.

It is a pleasure sharing time with you all. (Thus far.)

R120 mainly because the poor old dear popped her clogs a few months ago and the reviewers and their newspapers don’t want to piss off the grieving masses.

I bring the Crown, yes.

Leslie Manville was quite good in her special episode. It’s the same problem Helena Bingham Carter had though.

Almost nothing to do…then 45 minutes of brilliance….then nothing to do.

Well, the check cleared.

[quote] Why did we need to spend so much time with Philip trying to cheer up the blonde lady with her renovated horse buggy? Were they trying to make Philip into a more sympathetic character?

Peter Morgan said when the show started he would always devote time every season to Philip and Margaret because they were far and away the two most important people int he Queen's life (much more than her mother or her children). The carriage riding became Philip's big obsession in his life during his later decades, and Penny Romsey (the blonde lady) was his most important friend. The problem at this point in the show, though, is that there's not much for Philip and Margaret to do at this point in their lives. Love was over for them, and most of what they did was settle into routine (as most older people do).

In the "Iptaiev House" episode (which it sounds like you've not seen yet), they make it clear that gossip surrounded his friendship with Penny and people implied they were having an affair. Morgan never explicitly tells you one way or the other whether they're having sex which seems unlikely), but iin terms of the show he spins it so that it's at least an emotional affair for Philip, and they show him being quite cruel to the Queen in that episode about his need for better intellectual companionship than she can offer and that he had to find it in Penny.

The one thing I did like most about the first Penny episode was they did have such beautiful cinematography for the scene where Philip takes Penny for the ride in her four-in-hand carriage through the bridge arches--that was just gorgeous camera work. It's also fun to see Jonathan Pryce, who is such a fine actor (even though he looks and seems nothing like Prince Philip) given a lot to do. I liked his creepy scene in that episode trying to influence and pressure Diana not to go ahead with the Andrew Morton book.

I really liked the earlier seasons but am finding this one pretty boring. Hard to care about TQ thinking the taxpayers should pay for her family yacht or about Philip's carriage driving or even Diana's woes. Everyone keeps saying how great Eliz Debicki is but I find her looks distracting. She looks like a stick insect. Imelda Staunton is just awful, looks like someone's cleaner. Jonathan Pryce is a stand-out for me

It's clear the writer hates the BRF.

I've not yet seen the whole thing. I tried to because I'm a Princess Margaret in Hades as well as an Anne, the Princess Royal fan girl but I started too late in the evening to see the whole thing through.

The yacht? For fucks sake. The anvils, the allusions, the allegory - my head started to ache at the obviousness of it all. I tell y'all one thing though, Imelda was wearing a fine bra when she was at the exam table for her physical. Her boobies were at high alert laying down Joan Crawford style with that bra and I'd love to know the brand but maybe there was a series of pulleys involved for all I should know.

Elizabeth What's Her Face is doing fine. She has the voice and the look down pat. I'm really tall too but I eat and I implore Elizabeth to one day perhaps do the same. Somehow her physical fragility is adding to her trying her best as Princess Diana very well but it's more off-putting to me than her height.

The fellow playing Charles is very handsome. Even his wrinkles are where they should be. His pecs even are firm. He's doing a fine job at being diabolical thus far but he's way more attractive than Charles ever was. Charles wanted his mother to abdicate the throne, have Camilla, and then God knows what with Princess Diana and their sons? All that and more that handsome man has down cold like he's loving it. Good for him. I have no eye candy this season but you fellows do for sure.

Anne, the Princess Royal? That gal nailed her manner of speaking. She just plopped that wig on and got on with it. I dug the lighthouse scene.

I made it to the Dodi episode. That was very well done. No anvils, no allusions, no nothing. Just a good look at the history of that family somewhat.

My god, I can’t believe the Brits allowed someone with such a filthy mind and mouth to become King. And that Ice Queen Anne in her helmet hair was impressed with his teenage sexual banter as a relief to his otherwise staid personality, she looked so delighted like she was on her way back to her chambers to masturbate while thinking about it.

Why have the church and the monarchy not untwined themselves at this point? And why does the queen lean into overseeing and being involved in what goes on in politics, but you never see her direct involvement with the church? Shouldn’t she be meeting with the archbishop regularly like she does the PM? Doing ribbon cuttings for new churches? Visiting a different church every weekend and doing outreach to the congregation? She seems like a very lame duck about her head of church duties, and I would think that the numbers leaving the Church of England must have been huge, and she does nothing to plug the loss?

“Camillagate?” Would Watergate have that much cultural significance for that term to be used, especially 20 years after the fact?

Well, R155, she can't do much these days.

[quote] “Camillagate?” Would Watergate have that much cultural significance for that term to be used, especially 20 years after the fact?

That's LITERALLY what the British papers called the Tampax phone conversation scandal back when the phone conversation was published.

That's a horrible fucking wig on Anne.

Charles and Camilla are just awful...the tampon scene was beyond disgusting!

What was that divorce conversation between the TQ and Andrew? So Fergie is a victim now with no accountability for the self-destructive decisions she made?

Charles saying "I just want to live inside your knickers" to Camilla over the phone is one of the funniest things ever.

Would't he get discharge and feces all over himself? Never mind farts.

Sorry, it was "I just want to live inside your trousers," before one of the OCD queens on here corrects me.

I've only watched the first episode, but...

Elisabeth Debicki and West are both terribly miscast. Elisabeth Debicki looks and acts nothing like Diana - first, Diana didn't have big bulding eyes like she has, or that wide smile. West is actually too sexy and handsome for ugly Charles. Prince Philip has been miscast as well. Surpisingly, Imelda Staunton is the only believable character in Season Five - she seems to have a handle on the Queen when she was in her 60s.

Dominic West just oozes sex, like he's always ready for a hot and dirty fuck....the complete opposite of Charles.

This is the first season in which it was a chore to watch every episode. It is boring.

The writers are hell bent on presenting the queen as having little to no intelligence or common sense, and as a flat out joke. Prince Philip admitting that he has to seek intellectual companionship elsewhere and laughing and mocking her for not being curious was cruel. Forcing her to legitimize his emotional mistress was evil. Then we get a scene where that Russian pos humiliates her by talking shit behind her back while everyone laughs along. I kept waiting for someone to tell him to just stop talking.

Debicki is good, but I wish she'd stop trying to remind us that, like Diana, she too has sanpaku eyes.

I'm really not impressed with West as Charles. The previous actor was much better and I got spoiled.

I don't give a fuck about the Fayeds or the carriage lady.

Anne's hair looks odd.

R24, R32, I rolled my eyes the minute I heard her say that!

LMAO!

I thought, “Well, I guess some of the writers of this series visit DL regularly”.

Impossible. If they did it would be a better show.

Prince Philip is HORRIBLY miscast. Great actor who looks like he’s about to drop dead any second now.

How does anyone believe a man that old was banging Penny after their horse buggy rides?

LMAO.

And I agree. West is way too hot to play Charles, however, he captures Charles’ pettiness perfectly.

Diana cared more about the hot doctor than her friend's dying husband.

R171 that was a bit cringe. "I know your husband just had massive surgery, but are you as wet as me right now??"

Olivia Colman's queen would have told Philip that she has no time for his moaning and to go fuck himself with Penny Knatchbull's carriage.

When Diana was showing up daily at the hospital where Hasnat Khan worked, I kept wondering if it was out of the goodness of her heart or because she was looking to meet/date him. It just seemed really calculated.

Also I appreciate everyone on this thread sharing their knowledge without the usual snark or "fuck you cunt" responses.

[quote]Never mind farts.

And queefs. MASSIVE queefs.

So I’m not trying to spoil anything for anybody, but the person playing princess anne is just awesome and I like the way they wrote her character in to be rebelling against everything. I think this is a very political season of The Crown . Also, the person playing Diana does an excellent job and looks a lot like her, and the person playing Camila does an excellent job and looks a lot like her. The way the fayed family was portrayed is interesting.

The way the Russian royal family was portrayed at the same time as a grouse shoot was also interesting. basically the BRFare being portrayed as a family that is completely ruthless and willing to eat its own through indifference.

the sequences with Prince Philip teaching the younger lady how to drive is epic. At least they did capture prince Phillips ability in combined driving, because he was super gifted when it came to that.

i’m not completely sure why they had a 20 x 60 m dressage ring with many people riding in it like it was a warm-up ring. I’m referring to Fayed senior with princess Diana watching the horse show, that’s the scene. The people were riding and displaying upper level dressage movements but they were all in a group like in a warm up area. Perhaps it was a dressage suitability competition? Were they trying to replicate the Royal Windsor HorseShow? Generally dressage riders go one at a time in a competition.

I had never heard of and just read about "combined driving".

I fell asleep.

Its dull, dull,dull, so far. It's lost its charm. Something is missing.

The wig on the actress playing Camilla is absolutely hideous

Only watched 4 Episodes thus far. Here are some thoughts.

1) Surprisingly, episodes 1 and 2 were a slog to get through. Watched all seasons of The Crown and had yet to experience this. Almost gave up but convinced myself to carry on. Also, 1 and 2 just rather ended. Just cut off without any climax or natural conclusion.

2) Don’t sense as much cohesion with this group of actors. Perhaps this sense will dissipate as they spend more time together and are accustomed to interacting AND, we the viewers, adjust to the new actors.

3) Speaking of which, many of the actors don’t have a much of a physical resemblance to their characters. It’s distracting. West is far too good-looking to portray Charles. Even the way he carries himself is with much more confidence and heft than the King. I prefer Josh to the current Charles iteration in this category. I find Debecki difficult to watch for this reason. Her height and very long neck are accentuated with Diana mannerisms, and she is not striking in her portrayal, but gangly and almost a stick-figure-like caricature. Dunno why it is so off-putting. Imelda and Jonathon again don’t provide the body resemblance of the queen and Philip. As someone mentioned above, they seem fine from a distance, but odd at close range.

4) That said, the acting has been terrific: the Anne and Margaret characters are outstanding. West manages to exude the character of Charles in spite of his attractiveness. And Debecki is a Diana at least as good as Corrin. Imelda is great at voicing and distilling down to what an older Claire Foy might be. And Jonathon does manage Philip’s snarky empathy despite coming across as an”effeminate intellectual” as someone described above.

5) The writing seems subpar this season: fictional, but not the good type. This is definitely the weakest link of the show, thus far. The actors are to be congratulated for working with so little this season.

6)The cinematography is fantastic as usual.

Seeing Jonny Lee Miller makes me feel old. It seems like he was a cute twink not all that long ago.

[quote] The way the Russian royal family was portrayed at the same time as a grouse shoot was also interesting. basically the BRFare being portrayed as a family that is completely ruthless and willing to eat its own through indifference.

The grouse shoot (which was insanely popular among royals and aristocrats at that time) was counterpoised with the assassination of the Romanovs to show that the Windsors did have blood on their hands. But just before the credits, Queen Mary turned away from the grouse shoot celebrations with a very singular look on her face, and we couldn;t tell whether it was because of grim triumph over the death of Alexandra or whether it was out of horror because she realized bore responsibility for their death. Penny thought it was the former, but the Queen explained it was really the latter (which is what most historians think--Empress Alexandra was enormously pro-German, and during wartime the British people would have been furious had the BRF sided with the Romanovs).

[quote]The wig on the actress playing Camilla is absolutely hideous

I think this go all the wigs look... very wiggy. Dollar Tree.

Did they bring back Claire Foy again for that opening scene of the ship christening? They Iove her.

So I’m finally at the Al Fayed storyline, and I must say that it is deeply touching and I’m even shedding a tear or two because the old man is such a kind push over who just wants nothing more than to be accepted into a society other than his original one.

I know how that feels.

The Crown has handled this in the most respectful and caring manner, so far.

Bravo.

It's made up.

Did Mohamed Fayed hire the Duke of Windsor’s valet to learn about how to be an English gentleman?

Answer: partly true

In episode four we see Mohamed Al Fayed as a child selling Coca-Cola in Egypt and spotting the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, apparently in 1946. They have their manservant Sydney Johnson with them. With aspirations to break into British society, Fayed later hires him as his valet.

Although there was no way that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were in Egypt in 1946 or later, Johnson did begin working for the duke when he became governor of the Bahamas in 1940, first as a beach boy and later at Government House. He became the duke’s valet in 1960, living at their home in Paris, later called the Villa Windsor.

After the duke died, in 1972, the duchess dismissed Johnson. Fayed took him on at some point. That he instructed Fayed as to which books he should be reading and how to shoot is exceedingly unlikely. But Johnson did encourage Fayed to renovate the villa, persuading him that its collection was unique. He died soon after that, in 1990, aged 69. I doubt that Fayed nursed him or visited his grave, or knew where he was buried, as is depicted in The Crown.

Did the Queen rudely take back furniture and items from the Villa Windsor?

Answer: false

In a bid to ingratiate himself with the royal family Fayed invites the Queen to the house to take away items that she feels are special. The Queen wants the duke’s garter banner, his coronet, his diaries (deemed to be politically sensitive, of course) and the abdication desk. She sends Robert Fellowes, her private secretary, and he duly removes them.

According to Tom Bower’s 1998 biography of Fayed, the Queen rejected all offers of mementoes. “ ‘No gratitude,’ cursed Fayed, not understanding that the royal family wanted to forget the disaster [of the abdication].” In fact, the items that we see being removed in this episode remained in the house and were sold in the Christie’s auction in New York in 1998: the garter banner was lot 81 and the abdication desk lot 843. The duke did not keep diaries, just a few appointment books.

Did Fayed sponsor horse trials so he could sit next to the Queen?

Answer: true

Fayed is told that the way into British society is to be seen with royalty, and that sponsoring the Royal Windsor Horse Show will land him a seat next to the Queen, who is clearly less keen on meeting him.

Fayed sponsored the Royal Windsor Horse Show for some years from 1982 until he was informed that his efforts were no longer welcome, in 1998, and this was entirely to try to win over the Queen. He was photographed walking along with her, and the photo was prominently displayed in his office to impress clients. “Thankfully the celluloid never captured the soulless frigidity of the meeting,” Bower wrote.

How did Diana and Fayed really meet? Answer: false In episode three Fayed meets Diana, Princess of Wales when she is sent to sit next to him at the horse show instead of the Queen. In episode ten he spots her alone at Swan Lake after her divorce and invites her to dinner, then to the south of France.

Diana met Fayed when she was shopping in Harrods — he always tried to lure her into his office. They met occasionally at charity events. Bower’s biography reveals that he was forever inviting her to stay with him at his homes in Gstaad, Balnagown and St Tropez, but that she always declined, until the ill-fated summer of 1997. She met Fayed’s son Dodi briefly at a polo match at Cirencester in 1986. The next time they met would seem to have been when Fayed imported Dodi to the south of France to seduce her, in the summer of 1997, with ultimately fatal results.

1/2

2/2

Was Dodi’s fiancée sent packing by Fayed?

Answer: true

In episode ten Dodi is seen flying his fiancée, the actress Kelly Fisher, to meet his father after they have been house-hunting in Malibu. He is then forced to dump her on his father’s command.

Fisher was expecting to live in Malibu, she had an engagement ring. All was looking good, but when Fayed saw the possibilities of diverting his son to ensnare the Princess of Wales, Fisher was effectively toast. She was fobbed off with excuses, and the first she knew about Diana was when she and everyone else saw photos of her and Dodi frolicking on Fayed’s superyacht Jonikal, in what came to be called “the kiss photo”.

On August 14, 1997, Fisher announced that she was suing Dodi, and was seen on camera with her lawyer and her mother, displaying a sapphire ring surrounded with diamonds. On September 1, 1997, after the deaths of Dodi and Diana, her lawyer announced that despite her right to pursue his estate for damages she was dropping all claims.

Did Queen Mary really prevent Tsar Nicholas II and his family from being recused to England, leaving them to be murdered by a firing squad?

Answer: false

In episode six a letter is delivered to King George V in 1917 asking for a ship to be sent to rescue his cousin Tsar Nicholas II. He defers to his wife, who advises against it. The idea is advanced that Queen Mary was jealous of the tsarina because her first fiancé, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, had courted the future tsarina, this is then countermanded by the Queen saying that the problem was that the tsarina was pro-German during the First World War.

It was certainly not Queen Mary’s decision to leave the tsar to his fate. We might blame George V. Kenneth Rose, his biographer, did so, suggesting that he was “doubly menaced by a whispering campaign that doubted his patriotism, and by an upsurge of republicanism”. He was not keen to have the tsarina in Britain, blaming her “for the present state that exists in Russia”. But Jane Ridley, a more sympathetic biographer, has pointed out that an “offer of asylum from George would have made no difference”. The Romanovs were under strict house arrest and escape was impossible.

Did the Queen only agree to a state visit to Russia if Boris Yeltsin gives the Tsar and his family a proper burial? Answer: partly true In episode six a boorish, drunken Boris Yeltsin visits Britain and invites the Queen to visit Russia. She says she will go only if the remains of the tsar and his family are found and properly buried. Philip is asked to give DNA to help to identify them.

Yeltsin did visit Britain, and lunched with the Queen on November 10, 1992. She accepted an invitation to Russia “on principle”, but this had nothing to do with the burial of the tsar. The Queen’s state visit to Russia took place in 1994, and I was there throughout it. In reality the Queen made a point of avoiding as many tsarist connections as possible.

Tsar Nicholas II was finally buried in St Petersburg on July 17, 1998. Prince Michael of Kent attended. The Queen and Prince Philip did not. However, it is true that Prince Philip’s DNA helped to identify the tsar’s family’s remains, Prince Philip’s maternal grandmother having been the tsarina’s eldest sister.

Did the Queen believe Britannia was her expression?

Answer: false

In episode one we see the Queen in conflict with Major on his summer visit to Balmoral because she is anxious to retain the Royal Yacht Britannia, calling it her “expression” — in other words, the only “residence” she had created, the others having been inherited. He declares that the newish civil list rise (something dreamt up by the film-makers) could deal with costs for the royal yacht. Major is made to describe the older members of the royal family as “dangerously deluded and out of touch”, the junior royals as “feckless, entitled and lost”.

Britannia was certainly much loved by the Queen. It enabled her to travel to outposts of the Commonwealth and overseas territories, which would have been hard to reach by plane in those days, and to host entertainment for return state banquets on board (as she did in St Petersburg in 1994). It was used for the Western Isles cruise, taking her and her family up to Scotland for their summer holiday, and was one of the few places where the Queen could relax.

The Queen would never have made remarks to her prime minister about Britannia being her expression. Nor, for what it is worth, would Major have attended the Ghillies Ball on the traditional visit of the prime minister to Balmoral in the late summer. Prime ministers do sometimes go to the Braemar Games (witness a widely yawning Cherie Blair some years later).

Did John Major offer to try to stop the decommissioning of the royal yacht, Britannia?

Answer: false

In episode ten Major, the now outgoing prime minister, offers to intervene with newly elected Tony Blair over Britannia. Blair suggests a new yacht, paid for by private sponsorship, £65 million and to be called New Britain.

It was Major’s government that initially announced the decommissioning of Britannia, in 1994. Part of Blair’s 1997 election campaign was based on him mocking the idea of a new royal yacht at vast expense. The yacht set off on its last official voyage — to Hong Kong for the handover ceremony — in 1997, and was decommissioned in December.

The Crown Dissected, Hugo Vickers’s definitive episode-by-episode analysis of all five series of The Crown, is published by Zuleika and is available as an ebook and serialised at thetimes.co.uk

For the poster from this morning who wondered about Princess Margaret and Townsend:

The love that never died between Princess Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend

Answer: mainly false

In episode four it’s 1993 and Princess Margaret appears on Desert Island Discs. She chooses Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael, hinting that it has a special meaning. The question is asked, “Is music your first love?”, which leads her to look sad and say: “One has many first loves.” This inspires Townsend, her first love, to write to her, as apparently it was their song, and leads to a tender reunion between them after they were separated in 1955 — at which point he offers to return all her letters so they don’t fall into the wrong hands.

Margaret did appear on Desert Island Discs, but in 1981, and she did not choose Stardust. Her romance with Townsend, equerry to her father, became a public issue in 1953, shortly after the coronation. He was sent away to Brussels because as a divorcee he was not deemed suitable, and the love affair died. They met again in 1987 at a reunion for those who had travelled with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on their visit to South Africa in 1947. Margaret invited him (and his wife, who discreetly declined) to lunch at Kensington Palace — at which the other guests (Sir Eric and Lady Penn, and the Marquess of Abergavenny) made sure that they were talking among themselves to give Margaret and Townsend time to reminisce. I remember Margaret mentioning this lunch in 1994 and recalling that, by then, Townsend was 80.

In The Crown’s version the couple meet at an event where Stardust is played, the thwarted couple dance and Margaret ends up on a piano stool with a naval cap on. None of that happened. The Townsend family still have all his letters and papers, and have respected their father’s privacy and that of Margaret. In the episode he tells her that he does not have long to live. He died eight years later, on June 19, 1995.

The casting of Dodi is VERY generous. That man would never have been a ladies man if he wasn't loaded

Best Margaret. And Timothy Dalton has aged spectacularly, so handsome!

I'm watching the Windsor Castle burn episode. We never did hear Diana address that in any way, it's like it had nothing to do with her. Wrapped up in her own problems I guess.

Watching episode 3. My, The Crown makes the royals look bad.

John Major is Jonny Lee Miller? Ex-Mr. Angelina Jolie, wow.

They are a nasty lot, all of them. This is why the guillotine was invented.

Today I’m binging on Dallas

When will it be on cable or HBO?

I’ve discovered my problem with Imelda. She presents herself as someone who wipes from back to front

Rupert Young, Ioan Gruffudd, or Damian Lewis would have made a better Charles.

I really don’t find Dominic West too handsome to play anyone He’s average looking at best.

Camilla's hair is great, just right actually. All the hairdos are good, I'm always picky about that. Anne's is a bit too helmet-like, but other than that.

Why didn't the Charles character say the words he actually used, "until the marriage became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried"? Why did they have to tweak the dialogue?

Having quoted the Hugo Vickers book via The Times posts above, I paid 4.99 for the ebook and read it all night (fast read, no season 5.)

Holy shit... they just ignore pretty much everything as it happened and shape it to fit the show. I had no idea how wide of the mark almost everything is in The Show. Now of course dramatization requires accommodation, but this is massive. For example, it was Prince Philip who invited his mother to come live at BP. The Prince did not attend the funeral at Aberfan. The Queen Mother and Mountbatten did not conspire to bust up Charles and Camilla. From major to minor, one whopper after another. Basic rule of thumb: how it happened in The Crown isn't how it happened.

The Queen is quite the outlier this season, just on the sidelines tottering on along with a smile and a wave.

Here is the QM with John Major around 1994.

This season was pretty underwhelming for me, but Debicki and Manville were standouts.

The first season to not get critical acclaim. YIKES

Dodi's gal

R209 They should have named her Kitty, as in “Kitty Fisher found it.”

I’ve never loved the show. The first seasons were so boring that I skipped to the Diana years. I watched the first ep of this season. I am distracted by how tall and thin ED is. DW as Charles is also a no. The last guy was perfect.

Imelda’s best chemistry with the cast are with the corgis. Were they really named Brandy and Sherry? And she’s worried about Yeltsin as an old drunk.

If Philip was the Prince of Greece, why didn’t the Crown just annex Greece as part of the Commonwealth? Then there wouldn’t be a problem with the Parthenon sculpture being in England.

Me thinks things may not work out well for this Princess Diana.

There are some terrible hair/wigs in this one.

The writing and directing are both off. Not as strong as previous seasons.

Imelda has piggy eyes.

This Diana is so childish, petty, and vapid.

The casting of Charles is nice, but the casting of Dodi...holy fuck.

TV Dodi is hot. Real life Dodi is lucky he was rich.

The real Diana was childish, petty, and vapid.

The Queen wasn't particularly intelligent. The Windsors aren't known for being intellectuals. She was basically a nice, dull, country woman who liked horses more than people.

I really don’t understand the criticism of this season. I’m now about 70% finished with the episodes and I think it’s been a strong run with strong performances.

Debicki is great but I just noticed her wig does that thing where it sticks out instead of sit naturally at the nape of the neck. I hate when wigs do that. Fix it!

[quote]Rupert Young, Ioan Gruffudd, or Damian Lewis would have made a better Charles.

I would never buy Damien Lewis as a brunet.

Is this the Adonis who is portraying Charles?

No one could ever top Harry Enfield in nailing Charles. In fact, everything about The Crown just emphasises how superior The Windsors is. Why, oh why don't they do another series, with numerous episodes?

Timothy Dalton as mature Peter Townsend is great! He looks good and even sounds like the earlier Townsend.

Jonny as PM Major is also very good.

Some very good performances by outliers in this series.

The worst wigs are Natasha McElhone’s which looks like a straw bale sitting on top of a wig cap, and Camilla’s which is just a pile of… something. About half the wigs this season are crazy. If hadn’t been quite this bad. They must have new hair people. Wigs are notoriously difficult to get right on screen and it’s always one of the most underfunded and least thought about parts of costuming on a TV or film set. Even huge projects like Marvel movies with giant budgets get wigs horribly wrong. One would think there’d be much more focus on it since most of filming focuses on the head and hair is one of the very first things we see.

The guy playing Dodi pings like crazy. He seems gay. What's the name of the actor?

R226 I think both father and son are great. Very well cast.

One of my favorite moments was when Diana met Mou Mou.

[quote] Why, oh why don't they do another series, with numerous episodes?

My guess is that they actually will, but not until significant time has passed. I think Peter Morgan would do it because of his obsession with the queen, but he would want another decade at least to pass so that he would not get involved in current events. He had already been wary of getting too close to the present day, but the current brouhaha about somehow insulting Charles and Camilla and the Queen's memory has reportedly made everyone involved with the show tense and unhappy when they go out on the interviewing circuit. My educated guess is that he will do it in his old age if he lives beyond Charles, but he will wait for the current annoying interference of people like Judi Dench and Tony Blair to go away.

R229, curious as to why you think Morgan should be exempted from people assessing his work?

I have an idea for a future series. Charles is the aging king. He is half senile and William is given the regency. (Camilla dies of lung cancer early in the season.) William has issues. Katherine has a lover. Harry is a multi billionaire in America on his 3rd wife. This one "really" understands him. He has 8 kids. He has no interest in coming back, but he has made peace and gets along fine with brother and father. Anne has Semi retired to her horse farm, Andrew is dead, (suicide) and EdwaBeatrice's Italian died mysteriously and there was another man involved. Eugenie's tequila swilling Ex is a pig, chasing rich women. Eurotrash. Now. George has taken an interest in helicopters just like Papa. He has been encouraged in this by his loving sister Charlotte. One afternoon, William, against his better judgement, agrees to take a ride with George in his chopper. Charlotte pretends to want to come along and acts jealous and pouty when they tell her there is no room and this is a guy thing. As the go along the coast so papa can show him where he used to do air ambulance duties, the chopper stalls and floats out into the sea and sinks. Frantic mayday calls are the last words of the Regent and his heir. The Series ends with Charlotte sitting in the parlor at Windsor, as a servant and two guys in suits come rushing down the long red carpeted hallway towards her. There's an Omen vibe to it.

[quote](Camilla dies of lung cancer early in the season.)

Off camera, please.

Is there a fanfic site? You should find it, R231!

Ugh, Charles and Camilla are such trash people and I hate this revisionist image of them as soulmates and great loves of each other’s lives. If they weren’t born into wealthy powerful families they’d be living in a trailer park in Florida with many DUI and domestic violence arrests between them.

One of the few things I know about the Church of England is it was founded on the tenet of the availability of divorce and at all levels of society including royalty. So this stigma of divorce, and in the royal family in particular seems so contrary. It’s not like she’s being beheaded.

The height of the actress playing Diana is off putting, but at the same time it works as a metaphor for her outsized personality and ability to grab peoples attention.

How the Fuck did Blair get caught up in negotiating divorce proceedings for Charles and Diana?

[quote] If they weren’t born into wealthy powerful families

But we were.

Jealous much?

[quote] How the Fuck did Blair get caught up in negotiating divorce proceedings for Charles and Diana?

He didn't. John Major did, because he was asked to do so by the Queen directly.

How is that Labour looks so much more classy and highbrow than Labor?

Christ, Charles talking smack about his parents to the new Labour PM, he’s deplorable, no wonder the royal Family was so worried about this season.

R241 please be joking

R241, after Charle's own behavior and Diana going on live TV they have a lot of nerve feeling indignant with anyone else telling tales on the family and claiming they're "disloyal."

I find this season to be so claustrophobia-inducing. Is that intentional? A sort of view from inside the fishbowl?

No wonder they all are/were so self-absorbed, even beyond the privilege. They’ve all been driven mad.

I’ve been watching. I know it’s not a documentary but I’m seeing things I’ve read before.

Charles surrounding himself with yes people as he can’t take criticism. His friends are seen as fawning and agreeing with his views.

The Queen lacking intellectual curiosity. It’s been reported that Prince Philip was an avid reader and had multiple interests that weren’t shared by the Queen. Philip’s friendship with Penny was supposedly based on mutual interests that included carriage riding. The Queen is portrayed as intellectually dull.

Camilla having an active family life with her husband and children while her husband is aware of the affair with Charles.

[quote]The Queen lacking intellectual curiosity.

And yet she seemed to despise DJT.

There must have been something going on in her brain.

r241: Tony Blair has said that never happened.

[quote] Charles surrounding himself with yes people as he can’t take criticism. His friends are seen as fawning and agreeing with his views.

That was a big problem not just for him but for them.

His obsequious friends like Nicholas "Fatty" Soames were convinced Diana's popularity was just a temporary bubble, and they were shocked by how angry the public was at the Establishment after her death. It turned out THEY were the ones living in a bubble.

[quote] And yet she seemed to despise DJT.

Did she? What did she do or say?

I mean, it's hard to imagine her not feeling contemptuous towards him, but it's equally hard to imagine her doing anything that would be taken as direct criticism of him given her passionate belief in always appearing neutral.

I've never quite understood how exactly the Queen was supposed to demonstrate this intellectual curiosity that people are so certain was so lacking

By reading novels like Camilla does, r250. Or by reading widely like Charles does.

In all accounts of the Queen's life I've read, the authors have been quite clear she only ever read books about breeding or racing horses.

Oh, I see. So dealing with prime ministers and world leaders and reading state briefing materials for seventy years and being characterized as incredibly informed by virtually all of those prime ministers and world leaders, that doesn't tell you anything. And, by virtue of the job, being extremely scrupulous about saying anything that would reveal a partiality, all that doesn't tell you something. But having a personal interest in dogs and horses and not belonging to book club does. The fact is, certain snobs found it incredibly satsifying to portray her as dim, when in fact few had more exposure to the workings of the world and few kept their mouths as resolutely shut.

Get a load of Little Miss Huffy at r252!

She has stated her boundaries!!

John Major: "As one of the 12 who have occupied that office during her reign, I can say in all truth that – on matters of State – there is no one whose personal judgment I would value above that of the Queen. It is that unique, informed, experienced, yet impartial insight which is so valuable to the Government of the United Kingdom, and although it is a crucial aspect of her duties as Monarch, it is one which remains largely unknown.... The Queen does not involve herself in party politics, but may well offer counsel – perhaps through well-directed questions – that any Prime Minister would be foolish not to consider with care. All of them soon learn that the Queen, far from being cut off from her people, is very much aware of the shifting tides of public opinion – indeed often ahead of it. How does one sum up our remarkable Monarch? Compassionate, shrewd, well-informed, pragmatic and wise, with an unshakeable commitment to duty – and a great sense of humour."

Gordon Brown: "In an interview with the BBC, he recalled how the Queen questioned "why have these bankers got it all wrong" in 2008, when the financial crash led to the UK entering recession. She would listen, she would ask questions. She would be endlessly knowledgeable about everything happening in the Commonwealth.I was very embarrassed one day because I went in to see her at six o'clock, I didn't know that one of the Commonwealth leaders had been ousted and a new government had been formed. She was telling me what was happening when I was supposed to report to her."

MARY!

R251 So she just read smutty books about horses having sex or running?

Jilly Cooper, PhD....

No, R253, I've demolished your "opinion", with facts. Which makes you look a bell end.

[quote]The Queen lacking intellectual curiosity. It’s been reported that Prince Philip was an avid reader and had multiple interests that weren’t shared by the Queen.

Horses and horse racing were apparently the Queen's only interests. She had no intellectual pursuits at all, and no real interest in the arts.

In fairness, how many people anywhere have an interest in the arts?

Yet that bitch owned over 500 Leonardo da Vinci drawings!

I just finished the series.

I was underwhelmed by Imelda. It’s not that she did a poor job…I think she was done in by poor writing and direction.

Also where the fuck was Fergie? Why is she always cut out of these things? The lady playing her didn’t have one single line

There's a difference between "intellectual curiosity" and intelligence.

I think the Queen had intelligence but she had zero interest in exploring new concepts or ideas or going on any kind of intellectual journey. She studied the briefs sent her so she could do her job but that's it. She was a rather basic. Nothing wrong with that (most of the planet is pretty basic) but like most of the planet she was also rather dull.

She was the type of person who could never understand why anyone would want to color outside the lines.

It was all about duty.

And, bloody horses.

And, corgis.

R264 you forgot Phil's dick!

Really, Queen Liz was a lot like Beth Jarrett in Ordinary People.

Chilly and distant.

Not really maternal.

Nothing will top Claire Foy’s Elizabeth II.

Peter Morgan obviously adores Claire Foy. He keeps bringing her back for all these sweet but not really necessary cameos.

It's particularly sad here to see pretty Claire Foy turn into beady eyed gargoyle dwarf Imelda Staunton.

What does Foy get paid for these cameos?

R255 All of those “interests” pertained to the Queen’s job and her sense of duty. Through her job, she also had the opportunity to meet numerous heads of state. Her only outside interests included horses and dogs.

Contrast that with Philip. He had the following interests and hobbies: carriage driving, other sports, oil painting, art, collecting cartoons, designing jewelry, birdwatching, flying, UFO’s, photography, sailing, fly fishing, the environment, reading and writing. He authored 14 books on environmental, technological, and equestrian subjects. He had an extensive library.

Terrible thing, for your interests to benefit your job.

I get it, R270, it's very important to you we all call the Queen stupid. Sorry. Can't get to unanimous for ya.

R228 That scene showed Diana deploying her masterful flirtatiousness. The show does a good job of depicting that with Khan as well. It’s exactly how I picture her having been.

R272 I think so as well. She really latched on to Khan quickly.

R371 There is a difference between being stupid and having a lack of intellectual curiosity. Sorry you aren’t getting that.

R252 But did she READ BOOKS!?

R275, how could she when she was so intellectually incurious?

Diana penciling in her panda eyes, nice touch.

The best episode when taken on its own terms is actually the "Mou Mou" episode about Mohamed al-Fayed. The problem was that everyone wanted to hear about Charles and Diana and the divorce, and the main royal family members (the Queen, Philip, the Queen Mother, Margaret, and Diana) are only peripherally in the episode. So everyone above whined it was boring when it's mostly beautifully written. (The only thing I hated was having the valet Sydney Johnson ominously cough, which meant we knew he was going to have a fatl disease--it was like the famous parody of "Love Story" on "The Carol Burnett Show.")

The performances of Salim Daw as the ambitious Mohamed al-Fayed, Jude Akuwudike as the incredibly dignied Syndey Johnson, and Khalid Abdalla as the benighted Dodi.

[quote] The performances of Salim Daw as the ambitious Mohamed al-Fayed, Jude Akuwudike as the incredibly dignied Syndey Johnson, and Khalid Abdalla as the benighted Dodi

I meant to add "were all fantastic--among the best in the entire series."

Also, the guy who played the young twentysomething Mou Mou was quite attractive (until his character grew a mustache)

It’s too bad no one cares about the house of Monaco. That would make a good series. Grace, rainier, Albert, Caroline, Stephanie… All the way up to Charlene and the love children. I’d watch.

I am amazed at how wrong the producers got it in choosing Imelda Staunton. She's physically all wrong, being a tubby round ball and having the worst resting bitch face and coldest eyes I've ever seen. The queen might not have been the warmest mother, but if she were actually like Staunton portrayed her, she could never have retained so much loyalty and affection.

In depicting every character as selfish, unlikeable and self-absorbed, I am convinced Peter Morgan hates the monarchy.

Not 100%...the scenes showing Charles' involvement with the Princes Trust, and Margaret's grief at losing Peter Townsend, were very moving, although it should be pointed out that she was not actually prohibited from marrying him, just that she would lose her royal privileges if she did.

I thought they would show Diana's death this season? They didn't and I feel cheated. I waited for it the entire season!

Dodi came across as gay to me.

R283, that's all being filmed now...the BM is having a conniption about it as we speak.

R229, I meant another season of The Windsors! The snoozefest The Crown is well and truly over for me.

But, "selfish, unlikeable and self-absorbed" is an accurate description of the British Royal Family.

It's a good description for any rich, priviliged family actually.

i'm not into all the di stuff.

this will be on in the background.

Debicki is fantastic, and I was prepared to believe no one could really nail Di. The girl before her was okay, but not memorable for me. Debicki perfectly conveys not just the instability and the charm, but also the jaded sophistication Diana had acquired at that point.

Jennie Bond was the BBC royals correspondent for a good run. She wrote a pretty tough piece on the series in today's Telegraph, arguing Morgan had a right to be as insensitive to living people as he liked, as a creative, but not letting him off the hook for it. She also wrote quite effectively about the pain 1992 brought for the Queen, as the calamities piled up.

("1992 began with a shock announcement, in the middle of a general election campaign, that the Duke and Duchess of York were separating. Next we were all off to India with Prince Charles and Diana. There, at the Taj Mahal – the world’s greatest monument to love – the Princess of Wales sat alone, posing for photographs that came to symbolise her isolation in a broken marriage. In April the Princess Royal filed for divorce from her husband Mark Phillips." In June Diana, Her True Story; August Fergie topless and toes; Squidgygate was next and, still to come after the speech, the row over rebuilding Windsor, paying tax and the formal separation of the Wales.

On 1992: "I felt a twinge of guilt. The year had been brutal. And sometimes the media’s coverage – including my own reports for the BBC – had been equally brutal. We had clearly wounded our Queen. Her speech was a carefully crafted moment of pure drama, which is why I was so surprised – and disappointed – to see the retelling of it on Netflix. In The Crown’s version in episode four, the Queen pays tribute to her family for “all the sacrifices they have made”. Well, there certainly have been occasions when the Queen has paid tribute to her family, but this was not one of them. This was a year in which she might well have wanted to send the entire younger generation of royals to the Tower. With their antics and lascivious love lives, they had all but undone her dedicated hard work during 40 years of service as monarch. So, by changing it, Morgan has not only diluted its power but made it nonsensical."

On the distortions: The latest series of the Netflix hit The Crown has rightly been excoriated for picking open the wounds caused by the protracted breakdown of Charles and Diana’s ‘fairytale’ marriage. It has altered chronology, made up storylines and distorted the facts. It has poked and prodded into the love lives of Princes William and Harry’s mother and father, and done nothing to spare their feelings. However distasteful and hurtful, that is the prerogative of a dramatist.

The problem with The Crown is that it so skilfully melds fact with fiction that Morgan’s interpretation becomes the truth for many viewers – especially those who did not live through those years. And that is unfair. (A disclaimer now being added to the start of each episode will help.) But trampling on the fragile emotions of those who were badly damaged by all that happened and who are still very much alive, like William and Harry, seems to me very hard to justify. It is time for The Crown to end.

I haven't watched the latest season but they need a better looking Di. She was known for her beauty but this actress mat be good but she isn't good looking enough.

[quote] I haven't watched the latest season but they need a better looking Di. She was known for her beauty but this actress mat be good but she isn't good looking enough.

There’s something about her appearance and the way she carries herself in that weirdly interferes with her portrayal of Diana. Usually am able with imagination to fill in the blanks with actors characterizing others. Can even do it with Imelda.

But the physicality of the actress now playing Diana is so distracting that I am reminded time and again of the actress...and not Diana despite the acting prowess of the actor. It’s really bizarre. Is it her height? Stick-thin figure? Odd neck? It is something that was not an issue with Corrin.

I don’t enjoy watching this version of Diana.

Whoever said upthread how she needed to gain about eight or ten pounds was quite right, I think. Although she's a lot better in the voice and acting than I expected. But she looks like skeleton in her revenge dress costume.

Imelda Staunton would have been much better fit as the Queen Mother in the third and fourth series - and Olivia Coleman would have been perfect casting as the Queen Mother in the first two series. She’s probably not enough of a name but I think Patricia Hodge would have been much better as a circa 1992 Queen Elizabeth.

They really should have saved Charles Dance for Prince Philip and Benedict Cumberbatch would have been infinitely better casting for Charles then Samuel West who is way too hunky and twinkly.

Too bad they didn’t get Patricia Routledge for the Queen Mother - she could have even worn her old Hyacinth dresses.

R292 i think it's because her acting style in portrayal of Di is more like a caricature. That's how it strikes me, the way she carries herself, her head, her crossed arms

her chin in her neck except for when she is "on."

R289 I was thinking the same. She's great as Diana. Hoping she gets recognized for the role come awards season.

I loved Marion Bailey who played the QM in 3/4. I agree, this lady isn't memorable or up to much. I wanted Keeley Hawes for the Queen in 3/4 or Miranda Richardson or Emily Watson. Colman couldn't hide and the choice just felt so obvious.

Physically, there were so many actresses who could have blended into the part better. I think Staunton's work with the voice is terrific but I'm always so aware I'm watching Imelda Staunton with her funny eyes and snubby nose. It's like watching the Queen played by a pug. (Same with Colman, who got past it in the very private scenes like the trip to Kentucky and the signalling let's fuck to Philip upon her return.) Some of these may be way, way out there but Gemma Jones, Charlotte Rampling, Julie Walters, Lindsay Duncan.

I forgot Kristin Scott Thomas. Maybe her face is too known too, to blend in, like Rampling's. Just ideas. Staunton is fine but she's not pitch perfect, to me.

Dame Edna or Hyacinth Bucket as the Queen Mum? That's a tough one.

Judi Dench should have played the Queen Mother, just for a lark.

And the cheque.

What am I? Chopped liver?

Judi Dench being fabulous in a terribly English way.

Imelda should have played the queen mother, Helen Mirren as the queen. Imelda gets more awful to me with every episode. Her reactions run the gamut from smug to annoyed, conveyed on her face.

Celia Imrie would have been another pick of mine for Elizabeth in the 90s.

I thought Staunton got better as the season went along. Honestly the way she played the queen is how I've always imagined her to be behind closed doors as she aged. Some humor but more of a stick in the mud type of person.

I started watching but the fact that Imelda Staunton looks absolutely nothing like the Queen, Dominic Whatsisname looks nothing like Charles and WhateverHerNameIs looks nothing like Diana, took me right out of the story. So far it's like a Lifetime movie. I think the problem is anybody who was alive and aware of what was going on during this period will spend - like me - more time thinking what the fuck than concentrating on the story. The Crown worked very well in the early series because there was a certain distance from the story. Now it's too much like a filmed tabloid, cheapo exploitation flick. They should have stopped while they were ahead. The girl who played Diana in the last series is a hard act for the actress playing Di this time out. The last actress Emma Corrin was perfect though I hated Olivia Colman as the Queen.

[quote] i think it's because her acting style in portrayal of Di is more like a caricature. That's how it strikes me, the way she carries herself, her head, her crossed arms.

This may be. Find it very unusual that this portrayal almost brings up feelings of anger; especially as Debicki does a fine job with the voice and intonations. This could explain these surprising reactions: she is expressing her as a caricature rather than demonstrating her essence. This is most noteworthy as I had the opportunity to meet Diana through friends shortly before her death.

No other actress who has portrayed Diana (Naomi Watts, Emma Corrin, etc.) has engendered such reactions.

I think Emma Corrin’s Diana is overrated. ‘Team’ Debicki here, and I had my doubts going in.

Other actresses have portrayed Diana mostly as a troubled sweetheart. Debicki got to the manipulative side, which probably upsets some.

R311 I see so many online upset the way they are portraying Diana this season. Playing up the manipulative side to her. As if she was so innocent the whole time.

Exactly. Diana gave even better than she got. I mean some of it was colossally stupid - like Morton - but she was fearless. She was Dynasty grade oh, yeah, watch this....

I think Debicki is giving a big but terrific performance as Diana. To me it’s the Queen who comes off the worst she ever has on the Crown this season - an ineffectual little prig who would rather indulge in martyred passive aggression than give anybody what they actually need from her. It’s the first season I’ve been on Philip and Margaret’s sides during their now obligatory existential crisis episodes.

This season is a snooooozzzzze. Too much Chuck.

[quote]R29 …am mostly focusing first of the Charles and Diana stuff since that's what interests me most.

#MeToo

The drama is in that fucked up, disintegrating marriage. Margaret is interesting, too, to an extend (though the actress Manville is a little colorless here.) . The rest of the BRF seem like ordinary minded, run of the mill people who had fortunes dumped on their heads. And the fact that they’re emotionally constipated doesn’t help.

They should have thrown a truck load of money at Dame Helen instead of the miscast Imelda

OP- THIS is the only Crown I've taken an interest in.

^^that Toyota Crown is hideous

In addition to Monaco’s royal family, the Dutch, Belgian, or Spanish royal families have plenty of drama for a serial.

You are all so picky. I thought the whole thing was great. Each actor captured the essence just fine. And the themes weave together nicely - like the business with the two yachts, Brittania and Al-Fayed.

When do we get more episodes?

I just felt the Romanov and Al Fayed sections were fillers to push the car wreck into the next season.

In addition to Monaco’s royal family, the Dutch, Belgian, or Spanish royal families have plenty of drama for a serial.

Maybe they'd do a series of them in their own countries, but I can't see those doing very well in the US. Americans are only interested in the British royal family; for some reason, they don't pay much attention to any other royals. Maybe the Grimaldis while Princess Grace was alive, but no longer.

Another thing Debicki captured well was the sadness and ennui Diana had about her toward the end. I mean when you think about it, Diana had a deeply depressing aura despite all that beauty and charm. Talk about Sanpaku eyes....

I was fascinated by the scene with George V, Queen Mary and their family at breakfast in 1917. I had no idea George would have a parrot on his shoulder at breakfast.

R319-I've put a deposit on one already. Delivery in December. It's Silver. I totally excited about taking delivery of this car.

R321 season 6 will probably come out next November. They've all come out in November I think.

I wonder if they'll make the Queen more sympathetic in her final season. i think it was @ the time that season will cover (1997-2005) that the Queen started openly crying in public (at Remembrance Day commemorations, for example) and started seeming more emotionally relaxed. I think having Diana gone was awful for William and Harry but made her relax enormously, and of course Edward brought Sophie into the family at this time, and the Queen just adored her.

There will be a lot to cover. They'll have to show both Margaret scalding herself in her bathtub and her awful final years looking like Christopher Pike in her wheelchair, and both her funeral and the Queen Mother's. They'll also have to show Diana's death, of course, and the fallout from that (and do it differently than Morgan did in "The Queen"), and also the Golden Jubilee, and Charles and Camilla's wedding (which has been said will end the series). And they'll also likely show William's meeting and dating Catherine Middleton at St. Andrew's.

The series will end with their wedding? Shouldn't it end on some big event for the Queen?

I've always assumed the ending will be the deaths of Margaret and the Queen Mum. Full circle, storywise

The marriage of Charles and Camilla is a big event about the Crown itself, and Morgan has said the show becomes more and more about Charles as it goes on, since he too is in line for the Crown.

I just watched the "Mou Mou" episode and it's the best of the three I've watched so far.

Which isn't saying a lot.

And, yeah, I really think they failed with this casting. They don't LOOK like a family, just a disparate group of actors flung together on screen.

Staunton is just too piggy looking to be relateable as the Queen.

And, they've NEVER cast the Queen Mum right. Of course, they've never given her anything to do.

It should end with the Queen burying Philip and dancing on his grave.

Patricia Routledge would have been PERFECT as the Queen Mother.

I don't get the "Dominic West is too attractive to play Charles" thing.

He's ok.

He's so dry looking.

And, bland.

[quote]r322 Staunton is just too piggy looking to be relateable as the Queen.

QE2 was no beauty queen. Just a very average looking woman.

The queen may not have been a beauty, but she was a pleasant looking woman. Many, many photos show her smiling at others in formal engagements. Staunton never coveys any warmth.

Imelda is playing the Queen just like Umbridge but without any of the charm of Umbridge.

She's like a cross charwoman.

I liked the scenes where Philip reconnects with his buried Orthodox roots. Pryce is excellent in the Russian church scenes with only subtle expressions revealing a nostalgia on Philip's face. Great acting.

It does show how much Philip had to give up to become an Englishman. Part of him was very European with close ties to the East. That had to be completely submerged. So far the early episodes are really about Philip.

[quote] I just watched the "Mou Mou" episode and it's the best of the three I've watched so far. Which isn't saying a lot. And, yeah, I really think they failed with this casting. They don't LOOK like a family, just a disparate group of actors flung together on screen.

Share this perception. If it weren’t for E.3., would not have continued.

This is by far the worst game season of The Crown: all around. Writing. Acting. Cohesion (or lack, thereof).

Believe this to be the end of the road for The Crown. Likely will not be watching the further season.

Another takedown of Morgan's complete disregard for... anything. Sad thing is, for all the license he's taken, this batch isn't even particularly entertaining. `

"Tragically, the story of George’s refusal to save his beloved first cousin Nicky is essentially true – though Morgan’s dramatic foreshortening of historical events casts the King in a much harsher light than he deserves. The true story is that the decision not to rescue the Romanovs was in fact made not in a moment over a Sandringham breakfast table but over agonising weeks in early 1917 during which British diplomats in Petrograd frantically urged the British government to act, Lloyd George dithered, and King George’s initial resolve to save Nicholas II was fatally undermined by a stream of alarmist information fed to him by his private secretary Lord Stamfordham.

The events of February and March 1917, when revolutionary Russia’s moderate Provisional Government pledged to protect the Imperial family and were desperate to get them out of the country, are juxtaposed with the story’s horrible end in July 1918, when the Romanovs were closely-guarded prisoners of the much more radical and bloodthirsty new Bolshevik regime. Nobody in the spring of 1917 – least of all George V himself – could have predicted how deadly the danger facing the Imperial family would become, nor how vanishingly short the window for actually rescuing them would be.

George V’s private message to his cousin sparked a storm of accusations from Labour MPs that the monarch was attempting an unconstitutional intervention to force the government’s hand. Alarmed, the King’s private secretary Lord Stamfordham began keeping a scrapbook of anti-monarchist press clippings he marked “Unrest in the Country”, which he regularly showed the King. As Helen Rappaport writes in her brilliant history The Race to Save the Romanovs, one passage in particular was heavily marked up in red ink for the King’s attention.

It came from an article published by Independent Labour Party leader Henry Hyndman entitled The Need for a British Republic, published in Justice – The Organ of Social Democracy, which was soon to become the official weekly newspaper of the Labour Party. The article reminded readers that the British royal family was “essentially German” (in July 1917 they would change the family name from Saxe-Coburg und Gotha to Windsor) and called for a British republic, remarking that “if the King and Queen have invited their discrowned Russian cousins to come here, they are misinterpreting entirely the feelings of us common Englishmen”.

So really, it was the British Labour party who killed the Romanovs.

And spawned the "they're German" prejudice. Nasty lefties. It's all virtue and righteousness until you get into the the beer hall and the guard drops.

And a bit about poor Yeltsin:

The Crown is obviously fiction. Yet it’s a fiction that oddly combines carefully-researched historical detail with arrant and often offensive nonsense.

The portrayal of Yeltsin himself (though brilliant played by Anatoly Kotenov, who has the Yeltsin voice down to a tee) is the purest calumny. Yeltsin was indeed a drinker. But the idea of him dancing on a Kremlin table in front of the visiting British Prime Minister John Major as his entourage sing Kalinka is an appallingly lazy and frankly racist caricature. So is Yeltsin’s grotesque aside at Buckingham Palace where he says to an aide (within close earshot of the Queen’s interpreter) that they “can stick a bayonet up [the Queen’s] arse”.

Yeltsin was, in truth, a conspicuously respectful admirer of Her Majesty. During her visit to Moscow in 1994 Yeltsin chivalrously kissed her hand. In July 1998 Yeltsin organised the funeral of the murdered family in the Romanov vault at St Petersburg’s Peter and Paul Fortress with full military ceremony and great dignity.

I alone among the foreign correspondents thought to wear a black suit and tie, so I found myself ushered inside the cathedral along with the Romanov mourners. Her Majesty was not present, sending Prince Michael of Kent in her stead. But Yeltsin was there, and appeared moved almost to tears. Of all the historic figures, living and dead, who have been wronged by Morgan’s writing, Boris Yeltsin’s memory is the most grossly traduced of all.

the Maul reporting Prince Philip was so upset by how Morgan wrote the death of his sister (and that it was due to travel related to seeing him) that he went so far as to talk to lawyers.

This season seemed like unconnected chunks of narrative with little or no connective elements. There was just no flow, not in the episode or of the season as a whole. A big part of that seemed to be the lazier than usual writing and overt use of metaphors which were beaten over our heads throughout the show.

I'm trying. It's so boring.

The first episode's structure, comparing the queen to an outmoded yacht, was shockingly unsubtle. The blaring metaphor was an insult to viewers' intelligences.

The actress who plays Diana is a great impersonator. But the character is boring.

Charles looks nothing like Charles and I have a hard time seeing him as Charles. Also, the recent videos of Charles having bitchy tantrums now makes me feel like Charles is not being shown realistically at all.

The Egyptian episode....I've tried but I just can't engage with it.

Maybe I am just in the wrong mood. I'm really unimpressed.

Everybody's saying the Fayed episode is one of the better ones, but I couldn't care less.

I remember reading that there was a possibility of the Danish Royal family taking in the Romanovs. I don’t recall if the Russian Imperial family dithered (it may have been early in the Revolution) or if the Danes ultimately refused.

I've watched four episodes so far. The writing is not as good as previous seasons.

Imelda Staunton's Elizabeth is an old biddy.

The actress who plays Diana is terrific.

I liked the Egyptian episode. It clearly underscores the class and race system that was British society. Also captures Fayed's over-the-top style. Dodi was never so good looking. the scene with Diana at the end was superb.

Who cares about Fog's carriage riding? Jonathan Pryce is good though.

Jonny Lee Miller is terrific as John Major.

Don't like Lesley Manville's Margaret...too self-pitying. HB-C and Vanessa Kirby got the right balance of haughtiness and sorrow in her.

Dominic West may be too good looking, but he's good as that supercilious man.

Claudia Harrison is great.

Elizabeth Debicki is very good at Diana.

Fog was a nickname for Mark Phillips.

For me the crown jewel in the casting was Helena Bonham Carter as Margaret and she is sorely missed here.

Manville is fine…but not everything I need in Margaret.

The less said about Imelda…the better

I would have been perfect as Diana if I hadn’t retired from acting.

The Queen was not a stunning beauty, but she remained an attractive woman into her early 50s. Both Staunton and Coleman are less attractive than the Queen was at the ages they played her.

I'm 4 episodes in and so far my favorite episode, which I wasn't expecting, was the Fayed episode. I was really looking forward to this season with Diana, but so far, it's the most been the most boring season, with season 3 as the runner up. Maybe it is due to Diana/Charles over saturation - as a royal fan, I just don't know if there is anything fresh there, especially with the recreation of moments that have been shown many times.. Or maybe the odd episodes where the cast changes take some time to find their stride.

This season feels a bit joyless, so far. Either the chemistry is off with the cast or the writing is lazy. I am not a Harry Potter fan and did not watch any of the movies, so Imelda is really a fresh face to me in terms of watching her performance. I think she plays The Queen well and I like the spirit she gives her more the Coleman, who always seemed so dour and humorless. I had just rewatched seasons 1&2 recently and Stanton really embodies Claire Foy's portrayal. The problem is that the Queen and Philip are heading towards elderly, so there is only so much they can do. I wish the focus had remained more on the Queen as she has always been the most mysterious of the Windsors.

I think Emma Corrin was a much better Diana than Elizabeth Debeki - she had young Diana nailed with the accent/dialect, the eyes, etc. Corrin, to me, felt like she embodied Diana and O'Connor became Charles. As many have stated, she is just so tall and thin that it is distracting. I'll wait to see how the rest of the season goes. Josh O'Connor and Corrin had an amazing chemistry, even when they loathed each other.

Dominick West looks nothing like Charles, but he contorts her face in a way that I can see Charles every so often with the right lighting and angles. The problem (again, so far), is Charles is boring as hell. He had a scene in episode one with the PM that was like 7 minutes of straight, boring dialogue.

Philip was either a miscast or the actor is not playing him right. I've been watching old videos of Philips speeches up to when he was very elderly and he always had that gruff, sharp tongue - there was a video on YouTube of them taking family photos, he was probably in his early 80's and Philip was like, "take the fucking picture". This Philip seems very old and mild mannered. Did we really need a whole episode devoted to Penny and the horse carriages. That was dull. I seriously doubt 80-99 year old Philip was fucking Penny or maybe she is the reason he got so many urinary tract infections in late age.

Maraget has been a fun surprise. She is great and she seems to have good chemistry with Stanton. I've never heard of this actress. The Queen Mother - what happened to her. Maybe this is what happens to everyone. When you become elderly, there isn't much to tell. I really enjoyed the Queen Mother's arc in season 1/2. In her 50's, she's no longer the matriarch, she lost her husband, and she had to find a new life. They dropped her storyline after season two. This QM looks so different. There wasn't an elderly woman with a fuller face to choose from?

I agree with what some others have said. It's been fun to see the new casting, but they might have done better letting us stay with Claire Foy/the young Queen for another season and then transition over to another cast for the final 3 seasons. They could have aged all these actors, including O'Conner, Corrin into the 90's. Even Coleman looks old for her age. Menzies might have been difficult.

The actor who plays King Edward is very good - I just cringe every time he is on screen. Something tells me Sydney's hole was been worked between his tenure with David and Mo-Mo. Why does Dodi have an American accent? I hope The Crown doesn't fall into the pattern of other Netflix "prestige series" with major actors - style with no substance and bloating the season to make sure there is enough material for more and more seasons.

R345 Agreed. There was very little flow and then it just...ended.

Even the episode about 1992, which shouldve been PEAK drama, fell flat to me.

I'll watch Season 6 and hope for the best, but don't think I'll be revisiting 5

Whenever The Crown has tried to portray famous NON-Brits it just fails spectacularly.

The episodes with JFK/Jackie and then the one with LBJ were really embarassing and the Yeltsin one goes down the same over the top path.

Peter Morgan has talent but he's a talent in desperate need of a writing/producing partner to tap him on the shoulder and say, "No, Peter...that's shit".

The thing I don’t understand is why, since King Tampon is such a geeky stick in the mud, the weather-beaten old whore cunt was ever attracted to him.

The show doesn’t reveal anything about what Camilla sees in him.

This season really should have been about 6 episodes instead of 10.

R42 Arguably, that was the best episode in this season.

I'll say it, I don't like this seasons Diana. It might be just that it is all too recent or too in my memory, complete with the 90's soundtrack - Mazzy Star "Fade into You" w/ Khan, She is just too tall - she towers over all the men and it seems more like an impersonation.

I've realized Camilla had a really unique hair style. All an actress needs is that wig, an average body, and boom, anyone can be Camilla.

This season shows how basically unlikable the whole family is. It’s hilarious seeing them sit around and grouse how the government won’t fund their yacht anymore.

Anyone can be Camila, trash through and through, Charles was out of his mind to hitch his wagon to that horse faced manipulative whore, though in retrospect she does class up that Simpson woman, from of all place’s Baltimore!

I've been watching through the whole series for the first time these last three weeks and honestly...this is my least favorite cast so far.

Dominic as Charles is just ... laughable. He is WAY more macho and sexy than Charles. He can't channel him at all. The season 3-4 guy was excellent. This just feels like flattery and stunt casting (even if Dominic isn't a huge name).

Imelda is really overrated and over cast. I was annoyed to hear she got this part. Yes, she looks like QE at times in the show, but her take in the character is so, SO far removed from the previous two terrific performances that we're denied seeing the evolution of one woman over time - which I thought was the point. Her voice isn't spot-on. Her rhythms are too casual and fast. She isn't disappearing into the part. It really doesn't seem like she's pushing herself enough. Like she knows she's a big deal and can do her usual thing and it's fine, I'm Imelda. Did she even watch what Claire did in seasons 1 and 2?

The two gals playing Diana are excellent and threaten to overtake the show. I'm halfway through and wishing there was more of her.

The Dodi/Moumou episode and Russian episodes were my faves so far. Hope the rest of the season is strong.

I'd love to see Seasons 7 and 8....sans Imelda. The Andrew stuff and Markle stuff and Will and Kate would be juicy.

...and good God, what the hell was up with Gillian as Margaret Thatcher?? It was....such a shallow impersonation. I really found it jarring. Almost SNL worthy.

Oh and Jonathan Pryce??? Come ON. He's a distracting choice for Philip. I see HIM, not a character. He wasn't Perin and he's not Philip either.

Wish there were more unknowns as QE, Philip and Charles.

Lastly, why is the QMum so Skinny here? She was fat! Season 4 had it right.

I can only ever see Jonathan Pryce as Eurasian, he’s someone who became so identified with his first breakthrough role I can only see him as that.

I think Camilla would have been perfectly happy as Royal Mistress, in the background and enjoying all the perks of being a mistress and none of the tedium of being a Royal Spouse who has to go to endless dreary engagements and smile for the masses. But, Tampongate made everything out in the open and got pulled into being a public figure.

I don't really think she's a fan of anything that cuts into her ciggies and gin breaks.

This season is grossly unfair to the queen's memory. Yes, she lived in palaces all her life, but it is well-known that she had a frugal, non-materialistic streak; cornflakes for breakfast, turning off lights, electric bar heaters, dressing very simply. In her long life, many, many people met her, and they remember her warmth and interest.

Peter Morgan's evident anti-monarchist stance might as well be tattooed on his forehead, but trashing the late queen, dead only nine weeks, is hardly the way to advance his views and will not endear his work to the public.

I've enjoyed season 5.

Why do I find the "normal person" divorce scenes in episode 9 - the court-mandated counseling sessions before finalization - so touching and just amazingly sad. Well done. I like the plot device.

PM seems to me to be a contrarian more than anything else: when people want him to go left, he goes right. People wanted to see warm older granny Elizabeth, so he highlighted how she held tight to colder tradition (even if the at meant making shit up). People wanted to see the fireworks of the War of the Wales, so he sticks to showing how underneath all of that was an impatient man trying to make a difference in the world and an immature woman just wanting to be loved. People remember John Major as a bore and Tony Blair as a rock star, so he casts an attractive well-known actor as Major and an unattractive not-really-known actor as Blair. And he definitely knew what he was doing when he cast Dominic West: whatever one may think of his looks, West is Charming with a capital C and spent most of his career playing men with unattractive personalities that you can't help but like, even if only for moments. Morgan knew that sheepish, boyish half-smile would help blunt Charles' chilly attitude towards Diana.

Charles is such a weak, pampered, whiny thing. It’s embarrassing that he’s the head of anything outside a gardening club.

I think the Fayed episode is getting praise, perhaps in part, because it's new territory. For me, having finish it last night, I'm more convinced they should have stopped before getting into history a majority of us remember. Maybe the point to end was the marriage of Charles and Diana, when we all know what is coming?

Couple of observations: too much Charles doing and saying the same thing over and over and over again.

Loved Diana and Charles' scrambled eggs scene. It was kind of giving voice to team Charles and team Diana, even if it was all made up. Interesting. Still makes him look like a particular asshole. It felt like Morgan purposely went one too many... as he often did. His dislike of his subjects is evident. I felt really uncomfortable with the way he dramatized William's relationship with his mother because it's casting history in ways Morgan can't know. We've already seen examples of people in this thread taking it as gospel.

Overall, I found this series dull and the writing poor. I don't get so many of the choices he made or moments in the history of the royal family that he chose to focus on or to ignore. Is he bored? Is he grinding his established republican axe? I don't know. But he didn't distinguish himself whatever he was up to . 1/3

The Bashir episodes were really well done, although he let Bashir off easily. The extent and clear intent of that guy's duplicity was glossed over. You could have done a whole series on that. I did think the scene where Diana tells the Queen oh, BTW was one of the better ones and both actresses showed real talent.

2/3

The Charles and Diana egg scene was one of the best as far as drama and good acting/tension. The season was fine but I wish there were more scenes like that throughout.

I am 3/4 of the way through and all I can say is 'damn, this season is boring'. It's no longer 'must see TV' -it just drags on.

Debicki looks nothing like Diana, but more like actress Sandy Duncan when she was in her 20s and 30s.

So the episode I hated was Ipatiev. It rose to the level of all the opporbrium and umbrage in the press before the series dropped.

Massive rewrites of history (Queen Marr, timing of events, the making up of events.) The Queen would never (and did not) say to Yeltsin the crazy things they put in her mouth. Total violation of her constitutional role, total misrepresentation of her constitutional role and totally ignoring how it is established she performed her constitutional role for seventy years. It was the one episode where I really felt he was deliberately trying to portray the Queen as stupid and even petty. It was unfair and dishonest, whether she was alive or is dead. That episode really was over the top wrong to me, kind of Bashiry in its way.

^ 3/3, though I don't suppose it matters who said it.

Also, R374, I agree with. you. He's a good dramatist... I don't know why he mucks with the facts and history so badly, undercutting the strength of his ability to explore human emotion, often quite deftly. There were some marvellous scenes over The Crown where he did some great stuff (and many in series five... some of the stuff between Anne and Charles, like when he was sick, Leslie Manville and Staunton's late night phone call, Colman's scene where she's fucking had it with both of them at Christmas, that marvellously warm, almost sexy scene between Colman and Menzies where she's back from her horse trading trip and tells him she'll be up to get it on, that insightful scene between Philip's mother and Mountbatten, talking about old age.)

"Debicki looks nothing like Diana, but more like actress Sandy Duncan when she was in her 20s and 30s."

And Dominic West looks nothing like Charles or Imelda Staunton like the Queen. They're close enough approximations to go along with good acting. I think Debicki is good and she captures Diana's physicality and some mannerisms well - the way she moved and the fact she was taller than Charles.

I guess I just don't need doppelgangers to enjoy shows dealing with real-life figures and don't get why people insist on it.

I hadn't read about the season before watching this weekend. I thought it would end with Diana dying. But at the beginning of episode 10, I realized that wasn't the case.

I think it's likely Diana would still be alive had Bashier not deceived her. The outcome of the Bashier interview was that the Queen ordered the divorce. It surely did not follow that if she'd done the interview a month later or a year of what have you that she then would necessarily have been in Paris in August 1997. I mean maybe, but she likely wouldn't have been if she weren't so far adrift.

I'm sure Diana would have divorced from Charles before September 1997 the way things were already going by that point.

[quote] Charles is such a weak, pampered, whiny thing. It’s embarrassing that he’s the head of anything outside a gardening club.

Sometimes I wonder how he's the leader of anything.

Diana wasn't taller than Charles except when she wore very high heels. The actress playing Diana is 6'3" apparently. Di was 5'10".

Even so, I think she's did a great job. And taller in high heels is still "taller" in terms of being viewed in pictures and some public appearances.

Is Season 5 campy and wonderful, or is it as pretentious and boring as the other seasons?

[quote]I guess I just don't need doppelgangers to enjoy shows dealing with real-life figures and don't get why people insist on it.

Because Diana was one of the most recognizable people in the world, and a giraffe with a face like Sandy Duncan is rather distracting in every scene.

That actress’ height is good, because it symbolizes how Diana towered over King Tampon, morally (?)

This is how the series should end, King Charles III posing on his birthday looking like he’s fucking modeling for a Precious Moments figurine.

R370 interesting, I think you’re on to something.

R387. Yes. Diana was definitely one of the moral giants of our times.

r370 please stop using acronyms. It took me a while to figure out you meant Peter Morgan and not the prime minister. Also, in a few posts you referred to the Queen as TQ. It can be confusing.

"Because Diana was one of the most recognizable people in the world, and a giraffe with a face like Sandy Duncan is rather distracting in every scene."

Or it's not and people can use their imaginations.

[quote]r328 of course Edward brought Sophie into the family at this time, and the Queen just adored her.

Is she the one with the weird eye?

Jesus Christ, this season is so shitty!! Watching "Annus Horriblis" now and the writing is so bad!

And, why is the Queen now such a cunt? Morgan was relatively even handed with her for the first 4 seasons but now she's just mean and nasty.

And, we can't blame it all on Staunton...though she really is just doing Umbridge without the charm.

I’m watching episode 9. Why am I watching couple’s counseling of random people? WTH?

Oh, one more question. The Crown has “Diana” constantly putting her chin down and raising her eyes to look up. Did she do this frequently?

I loved seasons 1 through 4, but this season did nothing for me. My favorite episode was the Dodi one, one which I honestly did not want to watch it all.

What bugged me the most this season where the anvils that they were throwing at viewers. I assume the writers thought it would be clever foreshadowing, but every time I looked to my husband and rolled my eyes.

Christ. I hope season 6 is better than this.

Whoever casted the Queen Mum should be fired. Looks and acts nothing like we knew of her in public. They should have casted Lesley Nicol for the role - she was already sort of playing her in 'Downton'.

Whoever R398 is, they should be banned for being on DL and not knowing that “casted” is not a word by this point.

Someone uptread said (I paraphrase) that the actor playing Edward VIII gave him the creeps. I don't know if that is the case in his other roles but he's doing it right here. Edward was a creep. A perv and a Nazi sympathizer. His father had his number.

I wonder if the establishment welcomed the opportunity to get rid of him in part because he just creeped them out on a personal level.

It does sound a little weird, r399, but it is a real word. Perhaps less so in film and television, but certainly in the world of modelling. I guess it's an Americanism.

R398 is right about Imelda Staunton, though.

R371, r382, Charles is doing just fine and we like him as our King.

By the way, this show is not reality and the Charles character has little connection with the real Charles.

"Whenever The Crown has tried to portray famous NON-Brits it just fails spectacularly." - The Crown has failed even more spectacularly in its attempt to portray famous Brits, r356.

R310 Preach! This current actor is the better one imo.

Jesus fucking Christ, the tampon episode was one of the most cringeworthy episodes of TV I’ve EVER seen. Why on earth would have McNulty ever accepted this role? He’s looks like a compete asshole, and given his personal issues as an actor, one would think he wouldn’t want to remind the audience of them. And poor Olivia Williams. And that desperate attempt in the last five minutes of the Tampax episode to redeem Charles somehow with the title cards about the Prince’s charity or whatever the fuck after they spent 55 minutes absolutely destroying him! The whole thing was SO fucking weird and uncomfortable.

It’s a problem this show is running into consistently now, that we’ve recently lived this stuff. There’s not enough distance.

[quote] Peter Morgan's evident anti-monarchist stance might as well be tattooed on his forehead, but trashing the late queen, dead only nine weeks, is hardly the way to advance his views and will not endear his work to the public.

Absolutely no one outside of a sad shrinking band of monarchists in the UK cares about this. The royals, to the rest of the world, is nothing more than the world’s longest running soap opera.

Anything else we should know about, oh, everything, R406?

There are certain trends on DL. On the weekends the rage quotient goes up. I've noticed in the early mornings there are much more surly, sour posters bossing everybody around and replying with insults rather than thought. It drops off late morning. I suppose they're off to their doctor appointments or the seniors drop in centre.

The UK is the only country that matters, r406, and support for the monarchy is strengthening rather than slipping.

It's funny that you claim not to care about the royals and then watch a show about them.

So disappointed. This should have been the juiciest season and the whole mess was given the most superficial coverage. Even the most indifferent observer knew more about all the backstabbing and drama that went on in the early 90s than this show told us.

R406 do tell us how the rest of the world and other countries which actually have constitutional monarchies too feel about the British monarchy.

[quote]r402 Charles is doing just fine and we like him as our King.

Spoken like the classic abused wifey-poo.

Lol, not at all, r412. You're an idiot.

Wifey-poo? Seriously?

R409 HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA 😭😭😭😭😭☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

The only country that matters? Lol. Gurl, you’re barely in the top ten. Lolololol. Byeeeee.

The UK is the only country that matters when it comes to opinions on the British royal family, r415.

No fucking way were Liz and Phil listening to a song from Dreamgirls (“One Night Only”) belted out by some mediocrity (who the fuck was she meant to be?) with ballet dancers as back-up while Diana’s Panorama interview was being broadcast.

If only there were a way to find out what the Queen was doing that night.

Why didn't sexy tits Helen Mirren say yes to season 5 & 6? With the best will, Imelda looks nothing like HM.

I started watching this snoozefest and decided to skip the whole thing after ep3. This season is awful. Netflix has gone down hill lately and I got rid of it months ago. I almost kept it to watch the crown when It came out and I am glad I dropped it. I torrented the whole season and only watched 3 episodes. Tonight Tar came on the torrents and I am downloading it. Can't wait.

Netflix gets worse and worse. They don't seem to score anything worth watching now. What happened?

[quote]r419 Why didn't sexy tits Helen Mirren say yes to season 5 & 6? With the best will, Imelda looks nothing like HM.

She praised the queen in her Oscar acceptance speech. Maybe she didn’t like The Crown script because it exposes the queen as petty and unable to control her own family? (Some ruler.)

R395 Yeah, I didn't like that either. Reality is dreary and boring.

R422. The Crown is almost stenographic in its reporting of royal history so I guess we should reassess our view of the Queen in light of its depiction of her.

R422. In addition she’s not supposed to be a ruler. I assume you’re American.

The Tampon Gate episode was painfully bad...Charles BREAKDANCING?!?!?

The Russian episode was offensively terrible and inaccurate.

Where did "casted" come from all of a sudden? It's "cast"!

Apparently Charles breakdancing - or at least trying to - actually happened.

R428, I've seen that video and it's hilarious and painful all at the same time. Just no!!!

The woman cast as Diana looks like Anne Heche (RIP) but lankier. All I seen is Anne when I look at her, especially when they give her very short hair in the first few episodes.

The Crown doesn't "expose" anything or anyone, r422. Much of it is made-up garbage.

Here's the clip of Charles breakdancing, r428. He's not that bad!

He should really try harder

I wonder if Mirren was just done being associated with the part or looked at the quality of the writing in decline and made a guess it would be even worse as time went on.

I started watching it with a British friend last night. Him: "doesn't look anything like Charles", "doesn't look anything like the Queen", "doesn't look anything like Diana", "doesn't look anything like Phil the Greek". "Looks like some Downton Abbey Wannabe soap opera."

I really don't understand the "doesn't look anything like" criticism. I suppose they could have just stood up a bunch of Mme. Tussaud wax figures and played voiceovers.

And it IS a Downton Abbey wannabe soap opera. What the fuck else could it be? It's a tee-vee show, not a documentary.

In retrospect, the whole series is a bad idea.

The problem with this series is it's too close in time for too many people. We remember this period which makes it creepily like a cheapass exploitation "documentary". This season was a mistake. Already the last one was getting increasingly less like historical perspective and more like a soap opera. The first series were excellent.

R438, I agree.

When I first heard about the The Crown before series one even aired I remembered thinking it would be the crap it has now become, although the production values are very high and far better than I expected. But you have to listen to it, too. They could still be telling stories about the early years of the reign if they wanted to. The recent history is too recent to be told with so much license. It may be great entertainment, I don't know, but it's no longer great drama.

I'm thinking John Major could probably sue Morgan. The gratuitous nasty comment the Queen supposedly made about his wife was so tacky.

R438, I think you're right. What happened with Diana is too close in time, plus we all know too much, so it's glaringly obvious when the show is skipping, glossing over, or distorting something. The first season was excellent in part because it was remote enough it time to have the space to revisit it properly, but also because we knew so little about the innerworkings of the royal family at the time. Morgan had much more license for dramatization.

Also, I think the movie The Queen worked so well because it narrowly focused on those 2 or so weeks where the public was really questioning WTF was going on in the palace. The script did a good job of giving us a sense of the family's feelings about Diana without giving any specifics. So there's no need to fuss about whether it's "accurate" in the portrayal.

People have had sufficient of the Diana story. The Crown needs to learn this. Harry needs to learn this. She’s about as interesting or relevant now as Princess Grace, minus the acting career.

I think you are all being a little too harsh. The actress playing Diana is great but just a little too lanky. Charles is way too rakish but West has nailed his annoying traits well. Mou mou has been played well as was the valet.

It isn’t the best season but there have been bright spots. I especially enjoyed the Margaret and Townsend reunion, I know MARY.

R444, I'll go as far as to say the actors very often transcended the material. But even if you factor out the obvious hatchet jobbery, it was a disorganised, random series that felt like Morgan isn't even trying any more. Was Prince Philip even in the last episode? Or the one before that?

This whole season has been sad, small, and sour. It’s lost its mystique and draw. The divorce episode: what a miserable awful slog. If this is the way they’re dealing with the current era, it’s probably best if they’re done after next season.

The whole season has been sad, small and sour because the lives of the British family were all sad, samll and sour.

Just wait until next season when a snowy-wigged Imelda starts wearing brightly colored coordinated hats and coats, things will pick up for sure.

I, for one, have not been disappointed and I'm pretty much loving it all, especially the Mou Mou and death of the Romanovs episodes which have brought some welcome variation to the saga.

Finished watching The Crown which was a real slog because it was so slow and so soap opera-y. They wasted too much time on Penny Romsey, Mohamed Al Fayed and the Britannia. They skipped over all Diana's lovers, Gilbey and the Squigygate tapes, the stalking of Hoare and Carling, etc., etc. They did a good job on Al Fayed though, pointing out Dodi's "romance" with Diana was stage-managed by Mohamed to get revenge on the Royal family and Dodi had a fiancee waiting for him back in LA.

Imelda Stanton was lousy as the Queen, she just played Dolores Umbrage playing the Queen. Making the Queen so bitchy, snippy and ignorant was a poor choice for Morgan who no doubt thought the old bag was widely reviled when he wrote the piece only for her death to trigger massive wailing across the West. And her bitchiness with John Major was totally unbelievable. To quote Cherie Blair - an anti-monarchist leftie - all the Prime Ministers even the Labourites end up falling in love with the Queen. Nobody would fall in love with Dolores Umbrage.

Debicki just did a caricature of Diana, didn't believe the performance for a second unlike Emma Corrin who was good. Debicki is the spitting image of Tina Brown though. Surprising to see Jonny Lee Miller as John Major. The best bits were the ones he was in however no way would the Queen have pulled the arrogant stunts with Major which Morgan described. Morgan really fucked up this series. He should have stopped while he was ahead.

One particularly fake bit was Penny Romsey teaching the Queen where diaries were in Windsor. I recall the Queen taking Barack Obama through a history lesson on all the extraordinarily rare documents housed at Windsor.

Obama was shown the diaries by the Queen long after Penny showed the Queen where they were.

Is the actor who played Dukey really one-legged or was that achieved with CGI?

Good question, R450. I was wondering that, too. I think it was CGI.

Jonny Lee Miller was terrible as John Major. Completely forgettable. Every other actor on the show who’s played a PM has been exceptional at least two winning Emmys. The casting this season is really a mess.

That was quite a scene, him getting into bed with the missus. Everywhere you looked was sheer terror.

Was Dukey a famous personage in the UK? I never got his full name to google him. Why didn't he have the power to squelch the Bashir interview?

[quote] R447 This whole season has been sad, small, and sour. It’s lost its mystique and draw.

But what better tone could possibly reflect the BRF now? It’s Charles who sent it all off the rails and ushered in its present degradation.

Edward VIII was a spoiled, simpy little whining Man Baby, too, but things weren’t so easily and minutely publicized back then. Charles had the bad luck to be born in the [italic]wrong time[/italic] for his petulant antics.

We all know.

I'm almost finished season 5 and I just realized, they totally skipped over that famous scene where Diana confronts Camilla and Charles in the basement during a party and gets one-on-one time with her. Di even spoke of it in her audio interviews....why skip that?

Staunton is barely trying to disguise herself. So over her.

R454, I think the BBC Director General actually had more power regarding the programming of the channel than the Chairman of the Board of Governors.

I was very disappointed with tis season and I really enjoy The Crown. I wasn't looking to hate watch it. I did not mind Imelda, but I would like to have seen more of the Queen. She was sidelined this season for Charles and Diana, which were not rewarding. How did the Queen feel having do deal with Diana? I like that they showed a close relationship with William and her majesty. It felt like a typical grandma/grnadson relationship, The Queen also excelled in scenes where she was paired with Margaret, who was amazing.

I thought Diana and Philip where terrible casting compared to Corrin and Menzes. I was listening to the Netflix Crown Season 5 podcast andJonathan Pryce was saying that he felt very uncomfortable playing a manly man like Philip. He was used to playing weak characters who eventually found strength. It showed 100%. Philip felt like some annoying eldergay you just want to get rid of when he was sniffing about Penny's clunge.

Shockingly, the standouts for season 5 were Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi Fayed (god I wanted that furry Egyptian to breed me in the private jet where he was all hairy) and the Romanovs. Season 5 went total soap opera. All the seasons past tied a historical event with the Windsor's. The Diana episodes should have been campy and amazing - they were drab. This is the worst season.

The monarchy is thriving, r455, it isn't in a state of degradation at all.

There's a halo effect around KClll following TQ's death. But the comments about his wife in the DM are the same as ever, negative. People are angry about Harry and Andrew's perceived abuse of their privilege.

The latest series of The Crown hasn't helped, showing them all to be dull, petty, and entirely self-interested.

Lol r460, no one in the UK forms their opinion of the royal family from watching The Crown, nor do we give a shit about negative comments in the Daily Mail or over-worry about Andrew. We do think Harry is a moron, however.

Ok then, R460! So why exactly is Charles so worried about public opinion? There's a fair bit of evidence to suggest he is..

[quote] Jonny Lee Miller was terrible as John Major. Completely forgettable.

But, let’s be serious, John Major WAS the epitome of “completely forgettable”. They called him “the grey man”. Johnny Lee Miller was far too handsome and had a little too much charm to play him. Although I’m only a couple episodes into the season right now.

Sorry, I meant R461, who's already had a go at me on another thread..

Really, r461? What is this evidence? And why shouldn't the monarch wish to satisfy the public and be respected by the public? You're confusing working to earn the respect of the public and to serve the public with celebrities trying to be popular.

Well, let's face it. This is the twenty-first century. The monarch (and his loathsome family) is nothing more than a celebrity trying to be popular.

I wanted more of the Andy/Fergie train wreck. Not boring Charles.

Everybody likes Emma Corrin because she played Diana the way people like to remember Diana, as a sweet victim. I like Debicki because she’s playing jaded, cynical, vindictive Diana. Like it or not, that’s who she became.

Evidence that Charles is concerned about public opinion and its effect on the status of the monarchy:

The slimmed-down monarchy

Not allowing Andrew back into royal duties because of public condemnation; the royals are said not to be unsympathetic to Andrew.

Concern about the contents of Harry's book

Withholding of titles to Sussex children, so far., because of public dislike of parents' behaviour

There definitely should have been more Fergie.

And why was there an ENTIRE EPISODE just to set up Martin Bashir getting Diana's trust? Wasteful.

[quote] Everybody likes Emma Corrin because she played Diana the way people like to remember Diana.

Corrin became Diana, inhabited her, in a way that I have not seen any of the other actresses who have tried to portray Diana do. Diana was starting to vindictive by the end of season 4 and the explosive final scenes between her and Josh O' Conner's Charles were much more powerful to me than anything in season 5. Of the 2, I think Corrin's was more an Emmy performance than Debeckie.

I am watching season 3 now. I am debating if Olivia Coleman was the worst Queen - I know, controversial. Coleman's Queen had zero humor & a sour expression. I think Tobias Menzes and Matt Smith are neck and neck in terms of best Philip. I appreciate Menzes performance much more this second viewing.

I think the best cast was the original cast. Imelda Staunton is an improvement over Olivia Colman, but Claire Foy was my favourite.

I thought the Queen Mother was better in the second, though she had more to do in the first. There really was something to explore in the relationship between the Queen Mother and the Queen... the Queen Mother did not retire from having opinions and I've read she a Princess Margaret squabbled regularly.

I wonder if the Queen got pushed around a lot in older age. It seems like Imelda is told what to do versus the other way around.

Poor Elizabeth. Once she lost Philip and had to deal with the deluge of family issues and Covid over the last few years on her own, I bet she was ready to peace out. I imagine she was hanging on with everything she had to just make it through the jubilee. It definitely felt like she was saying goodbye to the world. There was something a bit sad, but also humorous, that she enjoyed watching the hot weather man every night in her final last days.

The monarch is the head of state, r466. You should try to understand what that means, before showing yourself up.

R469, none of that is evidence that the royals are worried about public opinion, it simply means they understand that they need to have the public's respect. Andrew is no longer a credible figure in the mind of the public so why on earth should he perform public duties? There is no law that says every member of the royal family must perform public duties.

I'm not sure where you found this "evidence" that they are worried about Harry's book, but there is nothing unreasonable in being wary about what a person who has already publicly lied about them might say. Not wanting lies and smears about you to be publicly made isn't simply a concern for public opinion.

No titles have been withheld from Harry and Meghan's children. What on earth are you on about?

[quote] The Crown has “Diana” constantly putting her chin down and raising her eyes to look up. Did she do this frequently?

Constantly, and self-consciously.

It's funny about the "inhabiting Diana" thing, to me Emma's performance was fine but not memorable whereas Debicki does inhabit, in a darkly sophisticated way.

As for the upward gaze, it's a Spencer thing, her brother Charles does it as does little Prince George. Also maybe something a tall person does - bow their head down and raise the eyes.

Young Prince William... holy Charlotte.

Wow - that is remarkable - I though that was Charlotte R479.

Except she isn't doing it in any of the photos in the article you link, r477.

Emma Corin and Naomi Watts are tied for the best Diana performances for me. Everyone shots on the Naomi movie but I thought it was good. Miles better than this fking season of The Crown.

Lots of films portray recent events effectively so I don't agree with the assessment that it's difficult to write or accept portrayals of recent events. The Flight 93 movie abt 9/11 plane comes to mind, and also this one about the Rwanda genocide.

They got the hair wrong with Watts. Major distraction.

I feel like they got Diana's hair wrong in season 5. Debecki's hair it too short in the beginning.

R485 too short and way too blonde.

Dukey was Marmaduke Hussey, Baron Hussey, chairman of the BBC. His wife Susan was Lady in Waiting to the Queen and one of Prince Charles' godmothers.

r474 what hot weather man?

The person who I am the most interested in is Mohamed Fayed. I bet he is going to have some great scenes trying to avenge his sons death. Didn't he go the very opposite direction and say the royals had something to do with it. I don't know how much we will see of him in season 6, but I loved this portrayal. The Crown is at it's best when it gives us a more in depth look a people we might have heard about, but don't know much about.

Thomas Scafernakers, R487. He looks a bit like a young Philip

R488 he had the most tasteless, tacky "Memorial" put up to Dodi and Diana in Harrod's. Just atrocious. He also claimed Diana and Dodi were murdered by the Queen and Di was pregnant by Dodi. Di's friend Lady Rosa Monckton Lawson who had been on vacation with Di a week before the accident, had to come out and say Di had her period while they were on vacation together and couldn't have been pregnant. Al Fayed's inability to get traction with his lies eventually led him to sell off Harrods and leave the UK. He made a big deal about Dodi buying an expensive engagement ring though he probably bought it to make up with his fiancee in LA.

Yes, R490, I meant to put that in the post because after seeing the MoMo episode, that horrendously tacky statue on the lower floor at Harrods tracks with something the character portrayed would do. I heard they removed it and then put it back. Everything you say is true from what I have heard. I wonder how far they will push or allow these conspiracy theories to shown in the next season.

I saw that statue. You can't unsee it.

Quite big tits, Eddie.

That sculptor borrowed heavily from MaMonnies.

Would have been better made out of butter.

[quote]r476 none of that is evidence that the royals are worried about public opinion, it simply means they understand that they need to have the public's respect.

??

When you have a low opinion of someone, you do not respect them.

[quote] He made a big deal about Dodi buying an expensive engagement ring though he probably bought it to make up with his fiancee in LA.

But it's very doubtful it was an engagement ring--it looks nothing like one. Had she seen it and he had claimed it was an engagement ring she probably would have laughed at it.

Being a British aristocrat, Diana would have wanted One. Big. Stone.--not a whole bunch of tiny ones.

Love the actor playing Dodi, found him very sexy and sweet in the final episode. And I look forward to more of him next season.

I really enjoyed the entire season, so poignant on so many fronts. Yes, it was bleak but then that's what all their lives had become. Debicki really won me over by the end, maybe she benefitted by being shot in more closeups where her lanky body was not as distracting. I even thought Imelda did a spectacular job and I think if her naysayers had never seen her before in anything they'd agree. She really resembled QEII physically in her 70s more than Claire Foy or Olivia Colman in their respective ages, just check out the photos. And I also came to like Dominic West as Charles and thought the treatment of the character was very evenhanded and fair.

If I had a quibble with anyone it was Lesley Manville whose Margaret seemed too tamped down and stodgy in all her pussy bow blouses, especially compared to the HBC version last season. But maybe that's more a fault of the writing and direction.

Can't believe we have to wait another year for the final season! Will King Charles survive?

Sometimes I thought Margaret Windsor was Margaret Thatcher because the actress looked a lot like Gillian Anderson.

Naomi Watts was too short, didn't have the aristocratic nose or bearing, wasn't believable to me in the least.

Meant to add, imo Naomi had no more business trying to play Diana than her pal Nicole Kidman had to attempt Princess Grace. Neither one had the right "it" factor.

I liked Kidman as Princess Grace. Most people thougjt she and the movie were complete shite but the lack of resemblance didn't bother me in the least. And I love watching crap biopics.

Nicole did really suck as Gertrude Bell, and the movie that should have been about the female Lawrence of Arabia turned out to be a soft focus historical period romance.

The thread title gets me each time I see it; shouldn’t it be “bingeing”? “Binging” looks wrong, I don’t “bing” things.

Personally, I think we should call it “Bingen,” in honor of Hildegard of Bingen, patron Saint of streaming platforms.

incel much?

Yes, r504, I used "binging" upthread, but it was a typo. Bingeing is correct.

[quote]To add to my comments above: I am surprised that, watching this season, I am nauseated by the amount of privilege these people have due to an accident of birth.

Did it ever occur to you that you are viewed by most of the world as privileged by virtue of an accident of birth?

Just finished the season and wow - they're really leaning into Diana as this schemy, "evil" counterpoint. The finale with her getting a trip on a yatch after betraying the crown contrasted with Elizabeth losing her beloved yatch in an attempt (of sorts) to maintain the crown was super sad.

And what the fuck was that sound editing choice in the final second, as the Queen stares at her reflection? Is this a horror movie now?

Dodi and his Dad went from cute and ambitious to tacky and gross in the span of two episodes. The way they're shown to talk about women...yuck. Who talks like that with their father?

Was William really that embarrassed by his mother? Was he giving her the cold shoulder that much? They seemed super close in real life. I think the show is just trying to be contrary, for the sake of surprising us.

Not a great season but okay, I guess. I can't believe they burned through so much of the Diana shit already and I found myself not caring about most of it.

r509, I didn't find Diana portrayed as scheming or "evil" as you did. She was pursued by Mou Mou, not the other way around. And I thought the scene of her packing up her boys clothes to go on the yacht seemed to suggest that she was doing it as way to treat the boys to a special vacation where they could all really get away from the press and the public.

But then, I've found the entire series this season to be much more even-handed about all of the lead characters. We're constantly shown the good and the bad and asked to make our own decisions about their behavior. I guess I'm more sympathetic than most here.

I didn't find Diana particularly manipulative either. Maybe because there was nothing new in the plot. We knew all that. The only thing that struck me was how completely impossible it would have been to sustain the marriage after the separation. Remember Major saying "their constitutional positions are unaffected." The Queen died more than twenty-five years later. Those two could not linger in limbo for a quarter of a century, let alone the absurd prospect of Diana being crowned Queen to then go about her business in essentially a separate court. Yet right to the end the Queen was portrayed as holding out that prospect. Minor.

It's funny, for lack of anything better to do I often rewatch an episode of The Crown at random. I have no desire at all to rando Series Five.

Anne Glenconner, who was portrayed (rightly) as Princess Margaret's lady in waiting and friend and then wrongly in pretty much everything else:

"She said she talked to Helena Bonham Carter about her performance on the show after it was released by Netflix.

'Afterwards, I said to her, "a bit disappointing, wasn't it?" And she replied "yes, but I'm an actress, I have to do what's written",' she added.

Asked by Phil whether she thinks the show is damaging to the members of the royal family, Anne said: 'I think it does hurt,' before adding: 'I don't think they watch it,

'The one thing I minded was when Prince Philip was accused of killing his sister, which was completely untrue, that's so hurting,' she said. She was referencing an episode of the show's second series where The Crown implies that Prince Philip's older sister Cecilie died in a plane crash because she was flying to the UK to see him, because he had misbehaved in school.

Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark died in a horrific plane crash aged 26 in 1937, with her husband Georg Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and their four children.

They had been travelling to the UK to attend the wedding of Louis, Prince of Hesse and by Rhine.

'Those two events were completely separate,' Lady Glenconner stressed.

The Mail ^. No point unsettling Muriel's peptic.

Anne Glenconner sounds like a big bitch.

R514. For calling out a show that bitchily defames people?

More she's 90 years old and has no fucks left to give. But curious why you think so, R514?

Good for her I say.

Sadly not enough people will hear what she has to say when she fact checks. The show will live on and spread misconceptions. Her voice will be forgotten. It sucks.

I'm reminded of the awesome Olivia DeHavilland who stood up to Ryan Murphy and FX. Loved that.

And Watts was way too short at 5’4”. And they did nothing to make her look height-wise like 5’10” Diana.

[quote] In retrospect, the whole series is a bad idea.

Which must be why it's received such bad ratings, no critical praise, and no Emmy awards!

[quote] And Watts was way too short at 5’4”. And they did nothing to make her look height-wise like 5’10” Diana.

You mean like breaking her legs and rebuilding them with metal extensions, like they did to Ronan Farrow?

You people are such idiots sometimes.

[quote] I'm reminded of the awesome Olivia DeHavilland who stood up to Ryan Murphy and FX. Loved that.

And she lost because it was a frivolous lawsuit. She had no case.

[quote] The way they're shown to talk about women...yuck. Who talks like that with their father?

***raise hands***

Is someone on a meltdown? I've got a fair number of no hopers on block, so I can only tell by the number of posts that show as unread.

Ryan Murphy's portrayal of Olivia was erroneous in minor details (as was the entire FEUD series), but actually flattering to OdH and really not defamatory on the scale of what's happened on The Crown. So, of course, it got kicked out of court.

R519. Yes. But in the future will it really be a show that anyone will watch or think highly iof?

[quote] Dodi and his Dad went from cute and ambitious to tacky and gross in the span of two episodes. The way they're shown to talk about women...yuck. Who talks like that with their father?

Apparently Mohammed Fayed who has a long history of sexually assaulting women.

Fuck off. R520. That is all.

[quote]r525 But in the future will it really be a show that anyone will watch or think highly iof?

In the future will the BRF be anything anyone will watch or think highly of?

No.

If you watch ANY movie or show based on real events/people you should never assume it's very accurate.

Because it very seldom is.

R528. Possibly not, but that, as you know is breathtakingly irrelevant.

This thread has been more interesting to me than season 5 with the exception of the mou-mou episode.

Random question to anyone who might know- the whole book list to understanding the English psyche; was that a real thing?

I was pleased to see Anastasia Romanov with her cavalier King Charles spaniel. However she had a Black and Tan IRL and a tricolor was used instead. I wonder if they “recycled” Margaret’s from seasons 3 & 4.

Hands down, the best scene in the whole thing was Diana and Mohammed at the races. It felt so real and fun, though I doubt Di was that quick and witty in real life.

It's a problem that the only interesting episode wasn't even about the Windsors but Al Fayed. Morgan shouldn't bother doing another series. He's run out of steam.

She was pretty good at making fun of herself, but self-deprecation is a staple of posh people's humour.

Couldn't disagree more, r533.

Morgan was smart to focus 2 episodes beyond the BRF (to Mou Mou and the Romanovs). The BRF simply wasn't very interesting in themselves in the years covered in this period of time and the other characters and story lines were very welcome and, to my mind, were the 2 best episodes.