The Crown (Season 6)

⭐ 7.0/10

(Originally written by Tim)

Honestly I think this season was maybe worse than a 7, but this kind of becomes a review of the series as a whole. I loved 1-4, but 5 and 6 have been a bit of a let down. I understand that everything royal revolved around Diana at this time, but I feel like the show was totally derailed in season 5, and the first half of this season has to wrap that up before awkwardly trying to get us to care about everyone else after.

I think the show was at its best when it showed us things that made Elizabeth consider what it meant to be the Queen. Whether she is still relevant is always interesting, and I liked that this wasn't just a puff piece about how great the royals are. Well this show would have you believe Diana was a saint, and maybe she was, but its more interested in painting a historical picture and re-enacting tabloid moments than it is giving us a fresh perspective on these events. Maybe its because they were so heavily documented that we know to much, I don't know, this just felt like royal cosplay or something, very uninteresting. The Dodi stuff was so boring because we know what happens, and the things with his dad made no sense. How can we empathize with him when we saw him be a jerk to his son for 10 straight hours?

Anyways, the once Diana is out of the picture I thought the show got better, since the rest of the reactions were interesting. Watching Harry and William felt like some earlier season Crown work, but I hated how much it abandons our older cast. We have spent so much time with them, but these actors feel like different characters, maybe with the exception of Charles and Philip, who have some great moments together with the younger generation that harken back to what we have seen.

There are also some terrible flashback moments that feel totally contrived (thinking of the Margeret death episode), and also they can't get away from the dead characters! Honestly, why even have Diana show up after she's dead, or Dodi, or the multiverse queen moment. Tell an interesting story, stop relying on past performance, or whatever they are trying to do there. I thought it was insane.

I'm no TV writer, but here's an idea I had. In a Margaret episode where they are trying to remind us of all we know about her (where I am actually just reminded how little she has mattered since the early seasons), she says of Harry that its hard being 2nd. What a great parallel! Why not have these two characters interact and show us this parallel, instead of making it a throwaway line and only recreating the things we saw Harry do in the tabloids? It just felt kind of lazy.

I did like a bunch of Charles moments, and Philip moments, which is not surprising since I think they have had some of the strongest arcs and the actors seem pretty locked in to how they were acted by previous actors. In general this season just made me really miss the early seasons. I kind of forgot how much I loved them, and its disappointing that the finale lands with a total thud. They try to give us the tension of Elizabeth maybe stepping down, but we know that's not happening! It also seems totally out of character, so that being the turning point of the final episode is such a let down, seems like a contrived way to get the previous queens to show up. So bad, especially when you consider the amount of time we have spent with her, they could have really pulled on my emotions.

Oh right I was trying to say something nice. Will and Kate are cute? As I said I think this season warrants a lower score, but the production value is still really high, and this is more a lifetime achievement score.