The Crown (2016-): Season 5

Title: The Crown

Year: 2022

Genre:  Drama | History |

Season: 1| 2 | 3| 4 | 5 | 6 |

Runtime: 58 min/Episode

Creator: Peter Morgan

Starring: Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Elizabeth Debicki

8,7/10

It’s a new decade, and the royal family is facing what may be their biggest challenge yet: proving their continued relevance in ‘90s Britain. As Diana and Charles wage a media war, cracks begin to splinter the royal foundation.

LOSING ITS GRIP?

The thing with long-run series is that expectations set a specific standard and when The Crown is released, it’s determined that a certain standard is needed to deliver, for the audience to be pleased. With the fifth season released on November 9^th, it’s clear that even fragment of previous seasons still taints this one, as it really doesn’t follow a central plot like the other season which signals that creator Peter Morgan fears to do something so radical as mediocre programming and that’s just what he does.

The pinpointed plot over the season is the relevance of the series, just like the monarch in which it’s taken place within. Charles and Diana are the driving force in the series, just like Fayed and Dodi and other characters that don’t fulfill a role. It’s also following Elizabeth II’s adjustment to new techniques, the public degrading opinion, and the drastic change of marriage that her family and children have subdued too.

If one expected a dramatic twist that twirls the whole season will be disappointing. There’s no grand nor is there an emotional redirect over the course of the show. Thus, it feels effortless. A lot of the sympathy is with Diana and her failed marriage. The fiercest storyline kept in the plot is the atrocious interview by BBC’s Martin Bashir and the only fair excitement. The tension is there during this time but no other was added to a grandeur consequence. Episodes from the middle of the last feel like the seasons’ beginning. The roller-coaster emotional trail seems to not be recalled in the writer’s mind when writing this in a soap opera way.

Just like her predecessor, Imelda Staunton inherits a role on fair ground with a humble presence and grace and with a weight of consideration. In contrast, she stands on her feet when her son is depicted to be rash and spoiling everything, a predicament that doesn’t fit the British monarch, a force for change that suddenly collides with the monarch’s own views. Diana, Elizabeth Debicki, is shown to be controversial, and unhappy and forces Charles to separate and then divorce, leading to a culminating final season that probably opens with her death. No, Diana did not die in the fifth season. She does her part in playing the rebel, compared to Charles who just wants change. Dominic West seems like a dull person, just like former actors in the part. But there’s not really excitement behind his performance, hopefully, it will change, in the upcoming season.

To be blunt, this a mediocre season, there’s some powder but nothing explosive. It’s somber, knot-knitting season and the final season will tear those knots. It has some glimpses of excitement but dies out easily in the next scene. There’s no true thrill which that’s also a sign for it to finally end its run.