‘The Crown’, an award-winning drama that follows Queen Elizabeth II from the 1940s to the present, has been long awaited by fans. Early reviews of the show have been released following its premiere, however, they don’t point to a promising start for the show. The latest season of the drama series has been called the weakest in the show’s history by critics, with the majority of them giving the show mixed to unfavourable reviews. The fifth season of the Netflix original series on the British royal family premieres as the first to be aired following the demise of its central character.
The Guardian’s Jack Seale in his review states, “When Netflix debuted a plush, true-ish drama about the British royal family, it was a period saga set in the half-forgotten past, and a production with a direct link to modern times: incredibly, the woman we saw becoming Queen in 1952 was still on the throne. Season five of The Crown now arrives as the first to be shown since its protagonist’s death – and the show itself feels as if its time has come and gone.”
Anita Singh for Telegraph UK noted that the show may have lost its relevance over the years and wrote, “Morgan is simply serving it all up again, meaning that a global audience too young to remember these events will now become acquainted with the details of Tampongate. Let’s not forget, too, that for sensational, are-you-kidding-me content, there is nothing here to rival the last couple of years of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and all this will be blown out of the water when the Duke publishes his memoir.”
On the other side, Judy Berman of Time focused on the content that kept the show afloat and stated, “The tempest surrounding Charles and Diana saves a show that’s spent most of its run stuck in a holding pattern, as the Queen has reliably chosen tradition over change and allowed anyone who wished to live differently to be crushed by the Firm. Morgan doesn’t lose sight of these casualties in season 5”.
While the majority of publications highlighted the shortcomings of the most recent season, The Hollywood Reporter was gracious to the show. “Yet at a time when seemingly every tabloid saga of the past half-century is getting adapted into an Emmy-bait miniseries, The Crown distinguishes itself by doing what it’s always done best: combining clear-eyed empathy, shrewd commentary and a refreshing intellectual curiosity into ten elegant hour-long episodes,” a part of their review read.
The new season of The Crown, created by Peter Morgan, premieres on Netflix on November 9. The series’ sixth season is already in the midst of being filmed.
