Season 5 of Netflix's critically acclaimed show 'The Crown' has confirmed to be releasing November 9. Video / DiscussingFilm
These days Netflix acknowledges in its official description of The Crown, that it is a “fiction dramatisation”, “inspired” by real events. It has declined calls to put the disclaimer at the beginning of each episode.
So as season five lands, briefly delayed by the death of the Queen,the opera gloves are off, and, when it comes to the boundaries between life and art, we’re on our own.
Charles and Diana’s fairytale marriage has gone weapons-grade Grimm. In a romantic moment with fleeting love interest, heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, did Princess Diana really purr, “I’ve already had a prince. I’m just looking for a frog to make me happy”?
The show’s most preposterous dialogue is unflinchingly transcribed from the historical record. Were they really going there? They were. Charles picks up the phone to call Camilla, necessitating an awkward conversation between royal lover and husband as she scrambles to take the call in private. Charles is soon declaring that he wants to live in her trousers. She’s just happy that he’s not making her go on reading his speech – “Is it very long?” - on the decline of the English language. “What are you going to turn into, a pair of knickers?” she chirps. “Or, God forbid, a Tampax,” he famously guffaws. That’s the trouble with the truth. It’s so freaking unbelievable.
The theme for this season is the waning relevance of the monarchy. Young Prince William, escaping Eton for tea with Granny, pummels her aged television set in an attempt to make it work. She should get a new one with more channels, he advises. Otherwise she might as well, “bury your head in the sand and pretend you don’t know what’s going on.” “I can do that,” she replies serenely. Lest viewers miss the symbolism: “Even televisions are metaphors in this place,” sighs the Queen.
Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana, Dominic West as Prince Charles, and Teddy Hawley and Timothee Sambor as Prince Harry and Prince William in season 5 of The Crown. Photo / Netflix
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Metaphors. Perhaps to underline the fictionality, you can’t move this season without bumping into one. Prince Philip, breaking the surly bonds of his subservient role by careering about the landscape in a carriage with a blonde; shots of the aristocracy out killing things.
Metaphor in chief: Her Majesty’s Yacht Britannia. It’s in disrepair, to be decommissioned. Britannia is “a symbolic representation of your mother,” Philip explains to Charles. “It’s like she felt that she is being decommissioned,” muses Charles, hammering the symbolism like it’s a malfunctioning Royal television set.
The timing for this series is sensitive. Everyone gets off pretty lightly. Prince Charles is played by Dominic West, for goodness sake. It’s hard not to feel for him when, on her birthday, “Mummy” prefers the novelty singing trout she gets from Andrew to a painting by her oldest son.
Princess Anne is hardly salty at all. As Diana, Elizabeth Debicki does such a forensic impersonation – gazing hungrily up through her lashes, wisecracking about the Firm, spilling the beans, suffering - that it’s downright spooky.
There’s one truly gruelling episode, safely long past. Flashback to 1917. Queen Mary refuses to allow the government to attempt a rescue of deposed Russian Tsar Nicholas and his family. The Romanovs are brutally murdered, children and all. There is no historical record that Queen Mary behaved as portrayed, though, with the Government of the time worried about anti-Russian sentiment, King George V reportedly changed his mind about offering help. It’s hard to see the point of this segment except to make the modern House of Windsor seem hardly ruthless at all by comparison.
Never mind. The most shocking material is true. We were there. The behaviour of the paparazzi hounding Diana. The behaviour of the BBC in getting the Panorama interview. It’s compelling history and redeems the lurching, clunky storytelling that besets this season.
Eventually the Queen gets a new TV set. Is change afoot? Not really. She begs William to help her negotiate the world streaming in. There’s a glimpse of Beavis and Butthead. “Can’t we just find the BBC?” she wails. William settles on a service with hymns. Her Majesty settles into her chair, a survivor, happy as a clam.
