The Crown Season 4 -- Official Watch Party Thread

Just started episode 1!

Is there any basis for that first brief meeting between Charles and Di? The costume made it super awkward

I want to love this but some of the casting is distractingly awful. The first Elizabeth and the 2nd Margaret were much too fine-featured and good-looking, and now this Diana is so un-Diana-like. The actress is so slight, while Diana was a tall, buxom, big-boned, big-eyed gal. Seems like it should've been easy to find someone with her physicality--then add a wig and a shy upward gaze and no acting really required.

I disagree pretty strongly with r3. I'm into the 2nd episode, and so far it's pretty remarkable how much Emma Corrin is like Diana. Her shyness and sweetness are so marked, and she sounds just like her. I did not know she had been the cleaning lady for her elder sister Sarah (whoever did the elder sister's hair and makeup is a genius--she looks so late 70s). She doesn't have Diana's height, it's true; but then the best performance the first 2 seasons was Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret, and Kirby is quite tall whereas Margaret was notoriously known behind her back as "the royal dwarf," so height doesn't really matter that much. (They're not trying to find physical clones for the roles; they're employing skilled actors to play them.)

Charles has grown up by this point to be a self-pitying and pedantic creep, just like the Charles I remember from my adolescence.

The first episode was mostly setting the pieces in place for the season, with Mountbatten's assassination and Thatcher's election. Gillian Anderson will take some getting used to. She does Thatcher's voice a bit too much for me, though I love how she moves as Thatcher with that strange walk pumping her arms and leading with her purse.

I love the scene with young Diana meeting Charles in her midsummers night dream costume. A bit of faerie majik that!

I'm two episodes in. The critics were raving about it, but it seems very Season 3 so far. I think the queen is just too boring to be the focus and her family are all unlikable. But I'll probably keep watching.

Where did they find so many old gits to play Thatcher's cabinet?

Their first meeting in the first episode was nonsense. The Windsor kids used to play with the Spencer kids as children as they grew up on the Sandringham estate.

I also disagree with R3. Diana transformed herself into the person you remember when she died. Emma Corbin is exactly as Diana was at age !9. Look for the early video of being interviewed in the street outside her kindergarten for a peek.

I'm on episode 3 right now and I'm enjoying the fuck out of it.

After 4 seasons I've come to the conclusion that Prince Philip was and is a complete ASS with no redeeming qualities. The fucking Nazi.

Gillian Anderson's Thatcher looks like she is constantly stroking out.

Emma Corrin is THE BOMB in this!

R11

Prince Philip is not a Nazi. He fought against them in WW2. Rather heroically, as i recall.

I was saving this for the rainy late afternoon here, but will have to watch episode 1 with morning coffee.

Just began watching. The montage of scenes leading to the explosion of Lord Mountbatten’s boat are so foreboding yet detached- quite eerie.

I love this series, with little complaints, so far.

Superior to all others, which are excellent.

Emma Corrin has nailed it. The voice, the youth, the wrongful beliefs, the naïveté, the cunning.

You realize how awfully wrong it all was.

Love the bitch granny who is a terror. And apparently wise. But she didn’t tutor Diana a lady in waiting dead. Anyway that’s one license they’ve taken. The one thing I think they got wrong was it was my understanding when you come into a room you only currency to the most senior members of the royal family if the queen is present. I could be wrong

[quote]when you come into a room you only currency to the most senior members of the royal family

When you come into a room with this family of grifters, you are required to currency to each and every fucking one of them.

R11 You might be surprised to learn that about 90% of the ‘Greatest Generation’ (the people who fought the actual Nazis) would be canceled using today’s standards for racism and sexism.

That lunch scene was a master class of scripting, subtext, directing and acting. That was an awesome fucking scene.

For those who like podcasts - " You are wrong about" did a series about Princess Diana, and i think it was very interesting. She really was a Hot Mess Express, but also remarkably kind and caring person. Her life was a nightmare.

Diana's grandmother, Lady Fermoy, was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother, R18.

The idea that Diana would have walked into a room of royals and not known what to do is also ridiculous. She wasn't some working class kid from a council estate. The Queen is her brother's godmother ffs. She grew up on the Sandringham estate. Her father was one of the highest Earls in the land. As if she would have just barged in and not known the proper protocol.

In her biography of Diana, Tina Brown does state that Diana was remarkably unsophisticated for the daughter of an Earl. The Royals assumed that given her pedigree, she'd be able to handle state dinners and such with aplomb, but Diana had a very sheltered childhood--after the Spencer divorce, her father rarely entertained and Diana and her brother were largely left to their nanny until they were shipped off to boarding school. While Charles Spencer was given the standard Eton/Oxbridge education that all posh boys got, Diana was sent to undemanding schools and dropped out at 16 after failing all her exams--twice.

She was sheltered and ignorant and very, very young when she married into the BRF. There are tales of her coming to family dinners at Balmoral wearing a WALKMAN. You'd think even a council estate kid would have known better than that.

[quote]There are tales of her coming to family dinners at Balmoral wearing a WALKMAN. You'd think even a council estate kid would have known better than that.

I imagine it beat listening to the drivel the rest of them were spouting.

Diana did grow up on the Sandringham estate, but she said in the Andrew Morton book she had very few encounters with the actual royals. they're only there a few weeks a year, and they would have had little interest in her--she only got to go over when the palace would shiow "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" as a treat for the local children. Also remember she was thirteen years younger than Prince Charles, so he would have had little interest in talking to her until she reached late adolescence.

R25 What was on her Walkman™?

I never noticed how big Olivia Colman's tits are until now.

Is Gillian wearing some kind of dental prosthetic to play Thatcher?

Overrated and overhyped just like The Queen's Gambit. Netflix has such a great PR team embedding in many chat boards, so it seems.

Big tits, yes, but I'm amazed at how all the corseting and spanx get Olivia into any kind of fighting chance after seeing her in personal appearances on talk shows and even at the Oscars where she looks so lumpy.

But OMG and am I loving series 4! Only seen the first 2 episodes but I'm utterly enchanted and transfixed. The bitchy encounters between Thatcher and Margaret and Princess Anne are delicious. And it's amazing how they can make British politics of the 1980s so riveting.

Or maybe some of us are just not quite the jaded assholes you are r31, so it seems.

This thread will reach 600 in a couple of days as everyone on DL will be bingeing this series starting today. And there's so much to talk about.

This really is the time to dust off a copy of The Diana Chronicles if you haven't already (or download a copy from Audible).

How many British lesbians will feel conflicted rubbing one out to Gillian Thatcher this season?

R28 Possibly this?

Is all about BDF Josh O for me!

Ugh, the tension with all the hunters and the hunted was done exquisitely excruciating. And the image of the boat exploding from below was brutally beautiful.

I'm getting hard thinking about Young Prince Charles as I Type THIS

Poor Margaret Thatcher at Balmoral, so awkward! I'm surprised that she didn't get some kind of primer from the government on what to expect at Balmoral, and what the daily schedule would be.

I love Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret just being an imperious bitch to everyone.

R39 run it through grammarly next time, that comment is giving me a headache.

looks like normal writing to me

Haven't started, but I'm really looking forward to it. Later today.

I just finished episode 4 and this really is the season of making the royal family look awful. They are entitled in the first couple seasons but the lunches with the queens kids really take the cake. Bunch of brats. Anne is by far the most likeable of the four.

My only gripe is I wish Coleman had resisted the urge to turn on the tear filled eyes. She does it a lot. She does it, in my view, more than the character she’s playing would usually do.

Then again, everyone wants to direct.

I know you shouldn’t take history lessons from The Crown, but if Thatcher was half as nuts as she is in this, she was actually dreadful.

So quibble, garden party, Fagan episode. I don’t think the queen would enter an event during the national anthem. I’ve only ever seen everyone standing at attention. I can’t imagine a chat their way through it as shown.

thatcher was indeed dreadful

I liked Margaret Thatcher in Scotland, complaining to her husband how the Scots were all uncultured barbarians.

I kept thinking how in the Fagan scenes if it was me and you came into my bedroom at that hour of the morning you would’ve caught me blowing off some of the early morning trumpets.

I'm enjoying it so far. I agree with R17, I thought Emma Corrin was fantastic as Diana. I think Josh O Connor is excellent, not to mention very cute.

I was disappointed to hear Fagan never really sat on the Queen's bed and spoke with her, apparently she just told him to get out and ran past him.

Obviously she wouldnt engage the intruder at all but that doesnt make for good tv drama.

True. There were reports that he had a conversation with her at the time, also if my memory serves me correctly.

R27 is correct. Diana was much closer in age to Andrew and Edward than Charles and Anne. In fact, when she was first seen hanging around the Royals, journalists thought she was there as a potential match for Andrew. Now THERE'S an alternate history for you.

She was 13 years younger than Charles so considerably younger than Andrew, too.

Come to think of it, why aren't we seeing Andrew yet in Season 4?

You will see Andrew, albeit very briefly, in episode 4.

R57, considering Andrew was willing to marry Fergie, maybe she would have had more fun, and if they broke up, she wouldn’t have been so criticized.

We’ll never know the whole story. It’s probably somewhere between her being borderline crazy and him being an asshole who never loved her. A crazy match made in hell.

indeed

Andrew was born in 1960 and Diana was born in 1961. They were a very appropriate age for each other.

Definitely, R60. It's always been portrayed as very one-sided fault-wise. There's a quote from Diana saying: "I loved Charles, and he loved me - very, very much. To say that he didn’t is wrong, totally wrong.” Maybe he was in love with her and it fizzled out due to incompatibility......who knows. Either way, I do think the truth was somewhere in between what was portrayed.

It's so good this season. I appreciated season 3 for what it was, but it wasn't quite as fun as this season. Everyone is fantastic.

[quote]Andrew was born in 1960 and Diana was born in 1961. They were a very appropriate age for each other.

Andrew was 10x the entitled asshole Charles was. Oh, and that whole fucking teenaged girls thing.

Completely agreed that Season 4 is much, much, better than Season 3.

I love that Josh O'Connor is way hung and the pics are online for anyone who wants to see it. But, gah! He's got one note. One broken and wounded note. Not for a moment to I believe that Charles isn't a great deal more assertive in his arrogance and privilege. The Charles in The Crown is developmentally disabled.

Josh O'Connor's dong....

Nice ass too, and you can also see the back of his balls...

Diana's grandmother was a real dragon lady.

The scenes with Margaret Thatcher at Balmoral were funny AF.

I thought to myself at one point, “She must have viewed this family as what Americans refer to as white trash with money, and then a few scenes later, she pretty much says to her husband that this is what she thinks of them.

While they aren’t white trash with money, nor is hunting considered to be a thing only white trash people do, Americans with new money see it as déclassé, so I giggled when Thatcher came to such a conclusion herself.

I never said Diana and Andrew would have worked out, R65. I was simply replying to the poster who said Andrew was much older than Diana. He wasn't.

Are they doing something to Josh O'Connor's ears so they stick out more like Charles'?

I wonder if they considered casting Russell Tovey?

His ears already stick out quite a bit. In a GQ interview, he said that casting him saved the producers money on prosthetics!

I didn't even recognize Freddie Fox as Thatcher's son Mark in the reddish wig. It seemed odd that the Thatchers wouldn't have at least one servant to help with cooking dinner and also their kitchen looked so small. But I guessed that's all based on truth.

I found the 4th episode slightly tedious. But otherwise loving it all and looking forward to the last two.

Charles and Diana never should've married. They were totally incompatible from day one.

A shame it was, R75. A travesty.

She was a breath of pink cotton candy air and moon dust, while Charles was a bore of a man, already resigned to the unhappiness of duty, and all that it brought to their loveless marriage.

The entire family is frightful, and Diana was the grad stag they stalked and killed, without any mercy, however.

Bloodlust indeed.

I'm struck by how much 1980 must be like ancient history to many of the people who are watching this. So it will be more convincing to younger viewers than I am (64). I'm watching for Josh O. and Gillian.

Is it not convincing? The style or specific portrayal of history?

The actress playing Diana is fantastic and I'm enjoying Camilla getting more screen time this season. I think it's a bit like watching Claire Foy portray the Queen. For the average fan, we don't know much of what the Queen was like as young woman and it's the same with Diana. We have enough media to know if the actress is playing her mannerisms right, but we don't obviously have the behind the scenes.. We didn't know the fantasy was a fake until years later. The next, 30-something Diana will have it hard because a lot of the juicy exploits were orchestrated by Diana in front of the media so we have a major reference point. Unless this actress is playing her all the way through. I think this season ends in 90.

What would have happened if Diana just said fuck it and ended the engagement?

[quote] She was a breath of pink cotton candy air and moon dust,

Mary!

And I say that with awe.

The BRF come off really poorly this season. Practically evil. And the way they locked up 5 of their cousins in a home for the mentally retarded and declared they were dead!

The trouble with telling the Diana story at this point is that she and Charles, and even their families, have both leaked so much revisionist history that it’s hard to know what is really accurate. I believe that young Diana may have wondered about Camilla, but not to the extent she letter said in Her True Story. On her wedding day, Diana “won” and there is no reason she would’ve thought it would turn out the way it did. Diana was young, rich, aristocratic and growing more beautiful by the day. Camila was a frumpy, middle aged mother of two. Of course she could see Camilla off. I doubt she was as tortured by Camilla in the early days as she ended up being ten years later.

[quote] What would have happened if Diana just said fuck it and ended the engagement?

Supposedly she wanted to do that in the days right before the wedding, but when she told her sisters that at a farewell dinner right before the wedding, one of them said, "Too late, Duch: they've already printed the tea towels with your face on them." And she realized they were right. Once they announced the engagement, there was no going back.

[quote] And the way they locked up 5 of their cousins in a home for the mentally retarded and declared they were dead!

Not five: two of the queen's Bowen-Lyon cousins.

Other members of those cousins' mother's family also suffered retardation and were institutionalized, but they were not in any way members of the BRF, nor of the Bowes-Lyon family.

Quite like Bonham-Carter as sort of the Greek chorus, trenchant observer. She’s quite funnnywithoutbeing comic.

R84 Always wondered if that sister regretted being so flippant when Diana raised her doubts about the marriage.

Both Edward and Andrew are completely repulsive. Anne comes off OK. Margaret is allowed to be somewhat sympathetic, though she was probably the worst of the lot.

Frankly, the Queen comes off as stupid.

Josh, my love, is brilliant in it

Well, call me a sucker but I'm 70 (American), lived through it all, and find every bit of it riveting and totally believable as to what they were all like, including Thatcher.

The people who've created this series are brilliant observers of human pride and frailty and their own specific culture. All of the details may not be exactly true but the skill of the story-telling is such that one can't believe otherwise. I find none of it exaggerated or beyond comprehension. I can't wait to watch the final 2 episodes.

What's the children's show Diana is always watching when she's unhappy?

[quote]'m struck by how much 1980 must be like ancient history to many of the people who are watching this.

I was four years old in 1980 and it still seems like ancient history to me.

Was Prince Edward really so poisonous and bitter in real life at that age? Holy cow. I hope he got nicer. he came off as the nastiest and cruelest of all of the children.

All four of them were so entitled and so self-centered. Even Anne was bitching when she had that gigantic mansion and stable of horses to make her happy. Andrew actually came across as the nicest of the children: he was crude and smutty, but at least he was cheerful and kind to his mother. But you also had the sense that all of the children were basically suffering from some sort of disorder because they had clearly not been loved enough as children.

Have to say that as much as I'm loving it all, I was disappointed with the casting of Andrew and Edward. I would think it wouldn't have been difficult to find young UK actors who bore a little more resemblance.

This hasn't bothered me at all with so many of the larger roles including, the Elizabeths, Margarets, Philips and Charles as the actors are so adept at getting the essence of the characters that they make me forget what the real royals looked like.

[quote]Was Prince Edward really so poisonous and bitter in real life at that age? Holy cow. I hope he got nicer. he came off as the nastiest and cruelest of all of the children.

The closet will do that to you.

I was astonished Charles's private secretary would speak so rudely to Diana on the plane to Australia and in Australia when she was Princess of Wales. Would that have really happened?

Edward is such a cunt

I can’t believe they didn’t take a ton of license with the private secretary, R96.

I was a bit worried, out of the gate, that it was going to be the Margaret thatcher show. But that seems to be eased up a bit. I also thought it might be the Diana and Charles show but that seems to have eased up a bit. The balance is good.

The entire Australia episode was amazingly done. Just great storytelling. To be honest I thought that I had tears were going to be a disaster but I think this is exceptional.

I'm a car buff, so I'm enjoying all of the various royal Phantoms and personal Astons and Jags in the series. Diana sneaks Hewitt into KP in a powder blue Rolls Camargue that is outstanding. Started off at 5 this morning and am now finishing up the last episode. I think it was just as good as season 3 although I would've liked a little more pomp with the circumstance.

I've just finished the first four, very much enjoying this season. It definitely seems more willing to take a more unsympathetic look at the Royal Family than prior seasons.

So much is done well here. Margaret Thatcher at Balmoral, Diana's realization that Charles doesn't love her, and every chat between the Elizabeth and her children in episode four.

They brilliantly referenced what would become of Andrew in a way that completely made sense in that time period by linking it to Koo Stark's The Awakening of Emily. I wondered how they would handle Andrew given what audiences would be thinking and was surprised to see them completely lean into it. Yet it is balanced still giving you enough to see why Elizabeth loved him (besides him being the best looking member of the family).

[Quote]Edward is such a cunt

They really portrayed him as such a twat in his scene, man Peter Morgan does not like Edward apparently. Though they did try to use bullying as a justification for why he is this way.

They really recreated Diana's haircut and makeup PERFECTLY.

[quote]They really portrayed him as such a twat in his scene, man Peter Morgan does not like Edward apparently. Though they did try to use bullying as a justification for why he is this way.

It's interesting, isn't it? Charles was bullied and was regretfully selfish and emotionally rebellious, but was not a sadist. Ed was bullied and it is pure hubris. I wonder if there are rumours that he beats his wife.

Carole Thatcher is a cunt IRL.

Diana's taste in music is too cool by half. She's more of an easy listening girl.

Wonder what episode Meghan and Harry are on.

Olivia Colman is betraying some of her sitcom roots

Fergie is so irrelevant she doesn't appear on the screen for more than 10 seconds and it's a non-speaking part.

Yes, I like Olivia a lot and think she's very talented, but too much of a firebrand and too broad an actor for this particular role which needed the ruthless self control that Claire Foy brought to it.

[quote] It's interesting, isn't it? Charles was bullied and was regretfully selfish and emotionally rebellious, but was not a sadist. Ed was bullied and it is pure hubris. I wonder if there are rumours that he beats his wife.

It's a fictionalized TV show, not a documentary. This is not necessarily how Edward really is.

In the Streep Thatcher biopic, Carol Thatcher was played by . . . Olivia Coleman.

[quote] Diana's taste in music is too cool by half. She's more of an easy listening girl.

They've had her listening to what biographies have said she really liked in real life: Duran Duran, Ultravox, Blondie, Billy Joel. I've yet to see a scene showing her listening to George Michael, but the others were all her other favorites.

Ha - I know Meghan is watching this somewhere, even if it's in complete secret.

Tobias Menzies is sex on a sceptre.

I want to fuck his brains out.

r105, the producers originally said that Series 4 would be the last and would cover Charles and Diana. But they later reversed themselves and announced that there would be a Series 5 and Series 6 (with Imelda Staunton replacing Olivia Coleman) but would end before Meghan came on the scene.

They've changed their minds once, though, who knows what will happen as time goes on.

[quote]Meghan is watching this somewhere, even if it's in complete secret.

You must be joking. Meghan is probably holding a viewing party at a rented drive-in.

Season 4 was never going to be the last r114. The original plan was 6 seasons, and then they changed their mind to 5 seasons, and then changed it back to 6.

I wonder if Harry will return to England to live. With or without Meghan. His indignation about the way she was treated will fade as he realizes he's chosen isolation in obscurity over his royal place.

Harry is still going to be rich and famous r117. Bring rich and famous without the responsibility and expectations that come with being a member of the Royal Family is a win win.

R76 Darling, I may be American, but I know that phrase should be “a breath of pink candy floss and fairy dust!”

r116 is correct and r114 is wrong.

Peter Morgan, the show's creator, has said repeatedly and categorically he will never show Harry's relationship with Meghan and also that he will never show Andrew's friendhsip with Jeffrey Epstein. He says he emphatically does not want to take the show up into the 2010s.

Carol is blowsy and annoying so Colman would have been perfect

Is it ever sunny in England? Every outdoor scene is filmed under overcast skies.

These first episodes are very literary in their presentation and this show is at its best when it does that. Lots of allusions and parallel storylines that heighten each other elevating the story. Bravo!

[Quote]he will never show Andrew's friendhsip with Jeffrey Epstein

Technically not at least. Andrew's scene was nevertheless "THIS IS THE ROYAL INVOLVED WITH EPSTEIN" in flashing neon letters to the audience.

Margaret Thatcher was one cold hearted bitch.

I felt so sorry for Carol Thatcher on the show. Her mother admits (although she initially denies it) that Mark is her favorite, and because he is more daring and audacious.

I was hoping for a little more of that Sloan Ranger aspect of Diana, I was always fascinated by that watching from the other side of the pond. And the clothes, especially in the country, have been spectacular for the period, very much bring up memories of The a Preppy Handbook. Was there a similar publication in the UK at the time?

The Queen Mum is the worst of the lot!

Diana's toilet bowl got more screen time than any of the other royals.

I’m disappointed in the marriage and royal prep for Diana, I swear at the time there was all this publicity about how Barbara Cartland, who I think was related to her or a god parent or such, was involved in guiding her? I was waiting to see with bated breath who they were going to cast in the role and how camp they were going to go.

I can't believe Harry would rather be stuck in traffic on the 405 going to see his mother-in-law, Doria of Downey, than beings amongst his cousins and aunts and uncles. After a while, he must feel lonesome for them. Plus, being married to a woke bitch can be tiring after the initial rebellion dissipates.

I think Harry was lucky to get out.

So Thather wasn’t a feminist, but just a misogynist?

Four episodes in so far. Enjoying it much more than Season 3.

Man, they portrayed Diana as bulimic even before she got married - for some reason I thought she didn't become bulimic until after her sons were born. Guess I need to rewatch the Panorama interview where she talked about it.

That meeting of the elder royals before the wedding - it was interesting seeing Margaret being in favor of cancelling the whole thing, while Philip was convinced that Diana would become more confident and more beautiful as she got older (true) and thus Charles would eventually fall in love with her (false). Then QEII convincing Charles to go through with it by using the example of George V and Queen Mary. Very profound scenes.

Excellent casting of Diana, IMO. Erin Doherty as Anne continues to shine. Loved how Anne admitted to her mother that she was resentful of Diana and the positive attention she got. That was probably true. Biggest mistake of Season 3 was not having an episode dedicated to Anne and the attempted abduction.

The actor playing Edward portrayed Prince Arthur, brother of Henry VIII, in "The Spanish Princess". Now there was a series that played fast and loose with historical events.

Was Thatcher a hardcore smoker, or was their some other justification for her voice?

I love the actor who plays Denis Thatcher--he's very funny, and so warm, despite his awful wife and son.

The actor playing Andrew to me looks more like Edward (or maybe young ALW) and isn’t as attractive or macho enough to be Andrew.

Diana become bulimic early on r134. Triggered by Charles referring to her as chubby, which I guess they left out becomes Charles already was enough of the bad guy here

[Quote]“The bulimia started the week after we got engaged and would take nearly a decade to overcome,” the princess recorded herself saying. “My husband put his hand on my waistline and said: ‘Oh, a bit chubby here, aren’t we?’

[quote][R116] is correct and [R114] is wrong.

[quote]Peter Morgan, the show's creator, has said repeatedly and categorically he will never show Harry's relationship with Meghan and also that he will never show Andrew's friendhsip with Jeffrey Epstein. He says he emphatically does not want to take the show up into the 2010s.

I freely admit I was partly wrong about the number of series but the rest of what you wrote confirms the rest of what I wrote, r120. Why so bitchy? No, don't answer that.

Darling, all of us girls and gays were bulimic on some level or other in the 1980s, it was part of the handbook. Diana just took it to professional levels upon marriage.

Yes given how they have cast other people as prettier in real life I am surprised they didnt take the opportunity to cast a real hottie as Andrew since he was famously the best looking Royal r137.

But I think you don't want to portray the predator as too sexy i guess.

[quote] “The bulimia started the week after we got engaged and would take nearly a decade to overcome,” the princess recorded herself saying. “My husband put his hand on my waistline and said: ‘Oh, a bit chubby here, aren’t we?’

And Diana never lied to or mislead anyone about anything.

Thatcher favors Mark because he’s stronger? Kind of makes sense, instead of being empathic and protective of her daughter, as another mother would be in that situation, she’s dismissive of her daughter. Really sums up the monster that she was very succinctly.

Most dynamic, powerful women adore their sons, and there's always a chubby awkward daughter standing in the corner.

Actually, I always thought Edward--for one hot minute, while he was in college--was the best looking Windsor.

Oh definitely Prince Edward...There was a rumor about a stable boy if I remember correctly. There's always a stable boy.

"Prince Edward was caught making out with another boy during his younger years, proving that he not straight at all. “It’s a strong possibility Prince Edward is bisexual,” the royal fan claimed. “Prince Edward when younger visited his brother at his Highgrove Estate, Prince Charles’ private home. The teenage son of the Housekeeper at Highgrove walked into the stables more than once catching Prince Edward and the Stable boy making out.”"

Andrew was a good looking lad.

There were always rumors. There was a rumor Diana walked in on Charles getting blown by one of his manservants. There were many rumors that Michael Fagan, the Palace intruder, actually raped Her Majesty in her bedroom and his very light sentence was just to shut everything up. I will say the official account of what actually happened was incoherent, made no sense and changed a few times over the years.

And then Andrew was a pretty hunky army guy.

Charles showing the Queen around his newly-purchased Highgrove: "I really think I could be happy here."

As if he's not one of the most spoiled and privileged people on the face of the Earth.

Makes you understand the French and American Revolutions with that one line lol!

Vanessa Kirby is way better than HBC in the Margaret role

Edward has the most hilarious line in the whole series in episode 8 right before Andrew's wedding to Sarah Ferguson! Dataloungers will love it.

r114 I'm sure if enough money gets dangled in front of them they'll do more seasons.

[quote]Peter Morgan, the show's creator, has said repeatedly and categorically he will never show Harry's relationship with Meghan and also that he will never show Andrew's friendhsip with Jeffrey Epstein. He says he emphatically does not want to take the show up into the 2010s.

Money talks.

I’m loving all these framing devices of these early episodes and hope they continue for the rest of the season. They make each one like a mini stand alone movie. The art direction, both interior and exterior, has been astonishingly good this season, like Luca Guadinino levels of well done.

r154 and r155 are of course the same poster.

[quote]Was Thatcher a hardcore smoker, or was their some other justification for her voice?

Thatcher wasn't, but Anderson is.

OMG: That was impressively cunty.

!!!!!!!!!!

r157 is the Datalounge Hall Monitor.

I wonder how much Netflix spends on this series. The set design and locations are gorgeous. Must cost a fortune.

Why won't Josh O'Connor stand up straight? Is he deformed? He is constantly stooped like an 80 year old woman. Perhaps that is his acting.

Wait, Buckingham Paace has a gift room? Is that where Candy Spelling got the idea from?

[Quote]Perhaps that is his acting

Perhaps the sky is blue

“The Guyanese Vase” sounds like a Tolstoy short story about the event.

I take Josh’s stooping as a physical manifestations of Charles’ deep insecurity.

Yeah I was surprised at how not-hot the Andrew was. I’d suck Eddie though

LOL good line: unfortunately the Wales’ marriage is a good example of something that is actually worse than the newspapers report.

Josh has talked about his Charles' stoop in interviews.

Well, the intruder had the good manners not to bloody the lovely monogrammed guest towels and used toilet paper instead.

What a marvelous season. By the end, even I was exhausted by that marriage but somehow I want it still to work as well. I've seen the Queen give more commands in this season than in any other. It was fun from beginning to end and flowed seamlessly like none of the other seasons. This may be my favorite, though I'm very very fond of S2.

I'll have to go back and watch it slowly. Damn, they had me feeing terrible when Di was first shown in his life. I just wanted that girl to run far away from it all.

Why didn’t the maid leave the tea tray when she interrupted the intruder?

Thatcher be hardcore Darwinian isn’t she? Were there any assignation attempts on her life, I know I really want to stab her.

I get the sense that the one gay guy in the writers room is in charge of Margaret’s quips.

Anne's manor house is unbelievable. I'm sure they did not use the real one for the series, but I would be astonished if her real house is that size.

The house they used for the exteriors Diana's ancestral home (Althorp) was actually quite a bit smaller than the actual Althorp.

R173 That should be assassination, spell check can also be unhelpful.

I can't stop watching and I'm really someone who doesn't like "binge" watching - like this entire Season in two days. I do better watching taking a week to watch the entire season - it marinates and I enjoy the latter episodes more. And, I remember more.

[quote]Their first meeting in the first episode was nonsense. The Windsor kids used to play with the Spencer kids as children as they grew up on the Sandringham estate.

Diana only very occasionally played with Andrew and Edward. Charles was off to boarding school most of the time and when he was home for the holidays, he wouldn't be playing with children who were ten years younger than he was.

I'm glad they had a really hot red-haired guy be Major James Hewitt. I was worried they'd forget him.

Watching now. She’s ok, not quite pretty enough. Like all actresses who attempt Diana. Best one was Caroline Bliss in the 1982 TV movie. Just sayin.

Kind of curious to see what the reaction is going to be to Fagan's anti-Thatcher spiel to the Queen in her bedroom.

Not even "pretty" - Diana really wasn't a beauty queen. But, there's a lack of something - a dynamic aspect.; a "striking" quality.

What's the timeline for the introduction of Hewitt? The official story is that they didn't meet until two years Harry was born.

The location for Ann’s house is the location for Gosford Park. Various rooms in the house have been used throughout the crown. I’m fairly certain the queens audience room is one of the rooms at Wrotham Park. Check out the gallery. There is the queens audience chamber room, Princess Anne and princess Margaret’s drawing rooms from the series.

Thatcher breaking down, and sobbing so hard she almost had dry heaves after Sir Geoffrey Howe's resignation in Commons.

I will have to go to wikipedia to see what that was all about.

Which episode is the Charles-Diana wedding?

You never see the actual wedding, r186. But r3 is the lead-up to it--it ends with Diana in her wedding gown waiting to be taken to St. Paul's cathedral.

Wow, Charles really was (is) a piece of shit, if this series is correct. No wonder he was so afraid of this season coming out.

The story in the last episode says he actually was dishonest to his parents about Diana taking up with James Hewitt (omitting that he refused to take her phone calls for weeks after saying he would renew his commitment to her, and had never stopped cheating with Camilla in the meantime, although he had promised his mother he would).

The tubby guy who plays Charles' odious private secretary this season used to play Prince Harry in the first two seasons of "The Windsors."

R182 it’s the aristocratic nose

the queen is yet again sidelined

I'm only on episode 2. They're all SO shitty towards Thatcher.

When Diana hugged that kid I walked up. Say about her what you will, that was her power and it doesn’t come along often.

Welled Up. Autocorrect.

By the last two episodes, Diana is wearing her fabulous "Dynasty" episodes with the shoulder pads.

I'm sorry we never saw Diana's parents or Raine, and especially the scene of her telling off Raine after her father's funeral.

She nails it at certain moments. I haven’t seen the mischievous high-pitched giggle yet.

They spend 10 million on every episode. At least that's what they spent on the first two seasons. They may have upped the budget on this season.

This will probably go down as the definitive Diana performance. Emma CORRIN is that good. The only question is whether she will ever be accepted as anyone else in her acting career.

R199, Google her and you’ll see in real life she doesn’t look anything like Diana. So if this performance is any indicator of her talent – and there’s a difference between a good imitation and acting - then yeah she probably will have a great career because this is a big breakthrough part. And a hell of a part to breakthrough in considering who has failed before.

[quote] What's the timeline for the introduction of Hewitt? The official story is that they didn't meet until two years Harry was born.

He doesn't appear, nor is he spoken of, until an episode set in 1988.

Oh dear, I don’t like seeing Diana barf.

Charles’ self-pity is so gross.

It’s ridiculously melodramatic how they show Charles and Diana always alone, moping. As if these two weren’t constantly surrounded by people.

Conversation between Charles and Philip in the first episode, after Mountbatten's death, was really strange. Philip sounded jealous. Maybe i am wrong, but i read that Mountbatten had a reputation of a child molester.

In the third episode, did anyone else notice the mouse running across the floor while the family is watching the TV?

I felt really bad for Thatcher at Balmoral (I had to pause the scene when she’s trying to play the parlor game out of secondhand embarrassment) but she seems like a self hating bitch to me. Talk about daddy issues

I ended up feeling really bad for Fagan. I’m glad no one was hurt.

The Australian episode was just spectacular

Yes, I saw the mouse too. Don’t know what that was about.

R135 Thatcher recognised during her ascent in the Conservative Party that her screechy lower middle-class voice would Just Not Do so had elocution lessons to lower her voice. She took it a bit too far but then her class was notoriously insecure.

Coleman was great as ever but I still couldn’t get past the feeling I was watching Olivia Colman dressed up as the queen. I wish for the last installment it wasn’t Imelda Staunton. I think she’s just funny looking and won’t look anything like the queen not even remotely. I wish they’d cast a great British actress from the stage who we’ve never heard of.

So, are we to believe that Charles and Camilla are soul mates if one goes for that kind of stuff? She’s coming off as bawdy and manly, it seems like Charles enjoys the camaraderie he had with her almost like that of a male friend more than a girlfriend. I can totally see Camilla instigating a three way with another woman and being the primary aggressor.

R207 Was the mouse about the lead up to the intruder saying the whole place was looking cheap and dinghy with chipped paint and peeling wallpaper?

It's kind of weird how Charles has aged the best of the 3 brothers.

To be fair, r209, Staunton is a great British stage actress that nobody in the US has ever heard of, outside of proper theater queens.

I guess Helen Mirren turned it down?

Wouldn't it have been cool to see her close out the series since she had done the writer's film and play playing QEII.

[quote] To be fair, [R209], Staunton is a great British stage actress that nobody in the US has ever heard of, outside of proper theater queens.

Not true at all. She was Oscar nominated for "Vera Drake," and everyone saw her as Dolores Umbridge in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."

Mirren has said in interviews she enjoyed playing Her Majesty but after her last stint, she is over and done.

R213 You’re kidding right? She was in the largest fantasy franchise ever that transcended any particular age group in terms of audience. And anyone who has ever seen Vera Drake will agree it’s one of the finest and unforgettable actress performances of the 21st century.

R206 The Australian episode was filmed (location shots) in Spain and they CGI’d Uluru (at the time known as Ayers Rock) afterwards. The scenery (and all the swarthy extras) looked NOTHING like Australia and Australians. But that was kind of fun for me.

This explains all the cars being left hand drive - in Australia the steering wheel is on the right - and the fact that the house on the sheep station where they left William and nanny looked like a bit of a small house on a hacienda. In reality Woomargama, which is where they parked the baby, is a huge and comfortable house on one of Australia’s grandest country estates occupied by a landed gentry Australian family - what we call the squattocracy. Also chosen for its location halfway between Sydney and Melbourne, and for the nearby Albury airport. This was always planned so that they could drop by between city engagements.

Bit of poetic license regarding the emergency trip to the house over Easter - this was always planned, as it was for most weekends if the tour.

R213 Her Follies and Virginia Woolf were fucking awful.

R213 And her Gypsy is a total train wreck.

Lol, everyone wants to touch the Queen this season.

Only the pro shot video of Gypsy is awful. By all accounts she and production were fabulous onstage and there are audio and video boots to prove it. We've had long discussions in the theater thread about what could have happened.

[quote]Edward has the most hilarious line in the whole series in episode 8 right before Andrew's wedding to Sarah Ferguson! Dataloungers will love it.

Just got to that part. I think I have a new favorite phrase.

I'm betting that Emma Corrin without the Diana hair and eye makeup looks very little like Diana. I think it's a spectacular performance. And hair and makeup!

R218 Ugh, it was Easter? That means after they petted and played with the lamb they are it.

I originally thought Gillian Anderson was stunt casting but I think she's been captivating so far (just finished episode 2). They are really intent on showing how crass and rude the BRF is though, wow. Not a saving grace among them.

HBC was unbelievably good in her big episode. I hope she gets an Emmy nomination.

R225 *ate

Are they padding HBC, or has age caught up with her? Was Margaret stout as she grew older?

R218 Thanks for the info! I’ve been having a lot of fun watching this show. I was only born a year before Diana died so I didn’t grow up watching her, but I find her so fascinating.

R225 I think there was a comment there from Charles, something about being on a sheep station and that dinner that night was lamb.

I grew up on a sheep station in Australia and we would regularly see a sheep that we had fed as a lamb and raised, then slaughtered by me (this was supposed to toughen me up - didn’t work) appear for Sunday lunch as a lovely lamb roast with mint sauce, after being hung in the shed for a bit.

You have to desensitise or run away, in that life!

The Diana story line is what that Markle woman is so desperate to claim as her own. The sussex fans are all over twitter, talking about "this is exactly why poor megs left." Give me a fucking break.

Are we to really to believe that the 1980s Queen really knew the phrase “Friend of Dorothy’s?” and she used it often?

R222 No. You always say it was great, but no evidence has ever been offered, including these 'audio recordings'. Imelda on stage makes stupid choices.

Just a heads up for those enjoying the costumes, The Brooklyn Museum is hosting a virtual exhibit of clothes from the Crown and another royalty show on Netflix. It’s really well done and on view until December 13, so be sure to check it out.

Loved the Camilla, far prettier than the real thing. Anderson is nailing it, just so on point. Am loving it.

[quote] Are we to really to believe that the 1980s Queen really knew the phrase “Friend of Dorothy’s?” and she used it often?

That's nothing! She would also regularly tell her daughter Anne to femme it up or risk being thought "a Pussy Puncher ready for the Dinah Shore Invitational!"

VF article about the institutionalized family members.

I was a little disappointed they didn't show the incident with the queen rushing to Diana's side when, pregnant with William, she threw herself down the staircase at Sandringham to "punish" Charles.

Diana and the Queen in the Australia episode was amazing. The "Ordinary People" hug/freeze moment. I'm enjoying this season much more than I did season 3, which I was still good.

[quote] The sussex fans are all over twitter, talking about "this is exactly why poor megs left."

This rings false. Link please.

Do all UK women hold their purses like that or is it a Queenly and PM affection?

I don’t want to turn this into a Meghan thread, but the only thing I could see Meghan fans taking as a shout out was when the Queen told Diana she was playing up to the gallery too much. When she said that my mind immediately went to Meghan giving homemade banana bread to some foreign minister on the New Zealand trip

Ohhhhh, I be waiting for an Alexis /Crystal knockdown after the South African newspaper article!

Thatcher be using her “grit” word excessively.

Me too, R193. And it was immediately followed up by rainfall in slow motion - symbolic much? And then Camilla sitting by herself with a cigarette and her wine, contemplating the fact that she could never compete with Diana in the public's eyes.

R239 - I also thought they'd show that. Or how pregnant Diana in a bikini was photographed in Barbados, greatly upsetting the Queen.

Speaking of, I just got to the part in episode 10 where she tells off Charles in spectacular fashion. "You're not suffering! WE'RE all suffering having to listen to you!"

lol at Margaret pulling rank with her PSYCHIATRIST!

I'm wondering what they will do for the next two seasonS, given that they will go no later than 2003 (Golden Jubilee Year) or 2005 (Camilla and Charles's wedding), and will expressly not cover Jeffrey Epstein nor Meghan Markle. They will have to show the publication of the Andrew Morton and Jonathan Dimbleby books (orchestrated respectively by Diana and Charles), and the TV specials focusing on Charles and Diana. Also the burning of Windsor Castle in 1992, the "annus horribilis." But given that Fergie only appeared in two scenes (and was given no lines), they won't show the break-up of that marriage, nor probably much of Anne's (since Mark Phillips got only about two lines this season, and one of them was mimicking a stag bellowing). I do hope they show much more of Edward being a nasty vengeful weasel, though.

I've just watched the first two and so far I like it a lot more than Season 3. I'm a bit shocked there's not more discussion on here about Gillian's odd vocal choices for her Thatcher...she sounds like she's an 80 year old asthmatic. But, I have to admit, though it pains me, I actually felt empathy for the Thatchers for being stuck in that horrid Scottish castle with that dreadful inbred family and having to put up with their strange ideas of fun: killing things, crawling about in the muck and idiotic parlor games.

I thought that episode was very well done and the Diana is quite good though she looks a lot like Jodie Foster. And, I like Mr. Thatcher too. He and Margaret are a hoot in their scenes.

Did anyone else think they overdid the CGI for Balmoral? They made it look like Hogwarts.

I'm assuming Season 5 will cover the Fire and Annus Horriblis and the death of Diana and maybe end with the death of the Queen Mother and/or Margaret. Or, that might kick off Season 6.

I'm guessing Season 6 might end with William and Kate's wedding or maybe George's birth just to have a final shot of the Queen, Charles, William and baby George to show that "The Crown lives on". Doing that would still end the show prior to the arrival of Meghan.

You know damn well how that will look if they go that route. ^^

Morgan has said REPEATEDLY he won't show Meghan OR Kate. The series will almost certainly end around the death of Margaret and the QM.

How the fuck could they leave out The Royal Tournament disaster. After skipping over the kidnapping of Anne do they purposely ignore the campest shit?

I know what The Royal Tournament was but what was The Royal Tournament disaster?

Holy..Charles and Diana in last couple of episodes is some dark shit. Very uncomfortable to watch Prince Dr. Evil contort himself in rage.

R252 I've never seen it where he's said he won't show Kate.

And, he has two more seasons left. If they're like all the other seasons, they'll be 10 episodes each (of course, maybe they'll do fewer episodes).

Season 4 ends in 1990 so 20 more episodes to cover just 10 to 12 years if they go to the Golden Jubilee for their finale? That seems unlikely when it's usually 10 episodes to cover 12 years or so. Extending to the Diamond Jubilee in 2012 would make more sense.

I'm really thinking they might just do 8 episodes each for 5 and 6.

Wait, r253, are you talking A Royal Knockout (was that the title?), the charity TV special that Edward produced where several Royals lead teams of TV stars in fake Medieval games and is indeed considered an epic disaster?

That would probably be too expensive to recreate but hysterically fun.

This?

[quote] the tension with all the hunters and the hunted was done exquisitely excruciating

I was thinking the same thing

Bit surprised with all the press about recreating the dress, we barely saw it.

R258 Yes! The first Edward disaster.

Season 2 and Season 4 (the cast turnovers) both ended with a big family photograph. Fair odds the series will end with a photograph as well.

Peter Morgan really should have paced these seasons out better.

I would have ended Season 2 with the death of Churchill. Having Churchill die in Season 3 with a new actress playing the Queen had no emotional connection. We felt nothing watching Olivia Colman at John Lithgow's deathbed because they had no connection with one another. Season one and two really could have been 12 episodes each...I would have started with the first episode being Elizabeth and Phil's courtship and then ended their run in 65 with Churchill's death.

Season 3 would pick up with "Aberfan" and have 10 episodes and they could have done more with Anne including her attempted kidnapping and wedding and the Olympics. And, still have ended the season as they do now with Silver Jubilee in 77.

Season 4 probably could have done 12 episodes. They really should have given Andrew and Edward more screen time and maybe not rush to the Charles & Diana Wedding.....seems like the Wedding should be Episode 4 and not Episode 3.

Fergie must be pissed she hasn't gotten any lines

I was slightly disappointed by the wedding dress. It was attractive and well constructed but it was smaller with less over the top detailing than the original.

Episode 1

The scene when Charles and Diana meet references Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet where Romeo and Juliet look at each other through the glass of an aquarium. Charles and Diana look at each other throught the leaves of a tree, both shy but intrigued, and only one of them doomed.

Both Charles and Di are cast very well. Emma has the huge light eyes with plenty of white showing and a similar nose to Diana, although at 5ft 8 she's not as leggy and has a more rounded face.

I don't like Gillian A as Thatcher. Her delivery sounds constipated and almost like a parody of MT's accent. Thatcher had a lighter, faster manner of speaking, emphatic rather than turgid.

Episode 2

Balmoral seems like a ghastly place with the endless grey skies and rain, sadistic stag hunting and the dibble dibble games. I'm sure in reality MT had plenty of colleagues who would have let her in on the bizarre combo of blood sports and nursery games she could expect at Balmoral. I like the way Margaret and Denis are represented as close and affectionate.

The dullard Queen has the sublime, sun blessed beauties of Italy and Greece only 3/4 hours flight away and yet heads for the leaden skies of Scotland every summer instead.

Camilla and Charles' reputation is going to suffer from this show. She never stopped seeing Charles, not even while he was courting Diana.

I was almost fooled by the CGI stag.

Episode 3

Appalling PR for Charles! He leaves his 19 year old bride to be alone in Buckingham Palace, ignored by everyone, for three weeks and doesn't even phone or contact her?

The scene where Diana doesn't know who to curtsey to is also silly, considering that she got it all right at Balmoral in the previous episode.

I love the idiots bitching about Gillian and her accent. It is actually a bit lighter than how Thatcher spoke.

[QUOTE] Netflix has such a great PR team embedding in many chat boards, so it seems.

Even here the Welp Troll cometh.

Will the racists who are obsessed with slagging off Meghan get the fuck off this thread? Season 6 will probably show yacht girl grifter Kate in 2000 but he isn't covering the 2010s.

Fans of Kate are terrified that Morgan will feature Kate's summer working on a yacht in the Solent aged 19, having lucrative liaisons with rich older men. This is why they insist over and over that 'he won't show Kate' when he's only said he won't go up to the 2010s and show their wedding.

[quote] And anyone who has ever seen Vera Drake will agree it’s one of the finest and unforgettable actress performances of the 21st century.

Congratulations r217, this is the gayest comment posted on DL all year

every queen gets her crown

[quote]they could have done more with Anne including her attempted kidnapping and wedding and the Olympics

Morgan hates having to include the women in this series, that's been obvious from the beginning. Nothing about Anne's attempted kidnapping but a whole episode devoted to Charles being unhappy at school just to lead up to the confrontation with the Queen after his speech? A whole episode about Philip and the moon landing? Yeesh.

Is it under my chair r272? I keep looking and looking.

[quote]I'm a bit shocked there's not more discussion on here about Gillian's odd vocal choices for her Thatcher...she sounds like she's an 80 year old asthmatic.

I love Anderson but she's a caricature in this role. She can do so much better and yet doesn't. It's baffling.

I don't remember the Aberfan or Mark Fagan episodes when they happened in real life. Did many of you here?

I suspect there are other quirky stories like those that will be used in Seasons 5 and 6. Events that happened that we, as Americans, wouldn't even think of.

I love gillian but this is the real voice of thatcher

They should keep going, even into the future. It could be fun to see the backstabbing and scandals coming up.

[quote]They should keep going, even into the future. It could be fun to see the backstabbing and scandals coming up.

Maybe a mashup with A Wrinkle in Time?

Episode 3 is like a watching a start of the horror movie. Diana is so young, so innocent. And BRF are such a fucking assholes. Especially Margaret.

I’m starting to believe that there has been a reason for the Anne kidnapping not to have appeared in sequence. Before the end of the series there will be Anne centric episode that will be in flashback and fantasy. It will seamlessly weave how she hallucinates being Natasha Richardson and involved in both the movies of Patty Hearst and the The Handmaid’s Tale, quintessential American roles played by a British actress, and what would have happened if she had been born to one of that great British thespian families instead of the BRF.

It will have the Lynchian feel of Mullholland Drive, but with a British twist. It will end with her on the slopes of Mont Tremblant Resort, where there will be another fantastical disruption a la the movie Sliding Doors, where one Princess Anne/ Natasha chooses to end the day early and leave the slopes and another one where she continues on with skiing. At this point the character will suddenly be played by Gwyneth Paltrow and the story will pull out to be about an American Actress from a thespian family who played multiple quintessential British roles in Emma and Shakespeare, but not Sliding Doors, which doesn’t exist in this parallel world.

It will all be a mediation on fame, royalty and families and despite sounding complicated will be completely crystal clear and perfect in summing up the plight of the BRF in the 20th and 21st century and show how Anne was really the linchpin of it all. The final shot of the series will be an actual family picture of the BRF, but in the place of Anne there will be Gwyneth. The camera will put out once more and there will be Gwyneth on set of a Ryan Murphy production for Netflix, but she will be wearing royal clothes and a tiara.

It seems as if the gloves are off, which is surprising as they are portraying more people who are still alive.

The Windsors are coming across as assholes.

I love Thatcher (the character, not the person), but she was so meticulous, I can't imagine that she wouldn't research what to pack. Or what to wear when.

I think Margaret is the only one who seems to recognize that Diana is a human being.

She didn't treat her well, but by the end of the episode Margaret realizes just how trapped Diana is.

And actually DOES something to try and help.

Well, Margaret's drunken wail to the family is hardly something to help Diana. Expressing an opinion is one thing but her lack of action speaks volumes. She may have been sympathetic but she had her limits.

Here is an article about how class affected how the Windsors saw Diana and Thatcher.

And how even though Diana was, in a historic sense, more upper class than the Windsors, she had lived a sheltered life and was socially awkward.

Maybe my knowledge of BRF history is lacking, but if they are really not going to get very close to current times--no Kate and Meghan--how are they going to fill up 20 more episodes? We are already up to 1990, and Diana died in 1997. Other than the Queen's "annus horribilis" in 1992 and Charles marrying Camilla, what's left to tell? Edward doesn't really garner interest, and it seems like they are sidestepping Andrew.

For awhile, it had been announced that they were going to end the show with Season 5 (I was wondering if casting Imelda Staunton influenced that decision). So maybe that was why they originally said they weren't going to portray Kate? However, recently they announced that there would be a Season 6 (did one of Imelda's projects fall through?). So that will give them more time to cover more material. So I think they could go all the way to the birth of William and Kate's first child. They're going to have to do something interesting because as the Queen gets older, she becomes less interesting. What has she done in the last ten years that is worth dramatizing?

Is the story of the sad disabled sisters that were hidden away - news?

Just horrid.

[quote]Morgan hates having to include the women in this series, that's been obvious from the beginning. Nothing about Anne's attempted kidnapping but a whole episode devoted to Charles being unhappy at school just to lead up to the confrontation with the Queen after his speech? A whole episode about Philip and the moon landing? Yeesh.

I agree with you in theory. Technically, the show is about Queen Elizabeth and the future of the monarchy. So obviously a storyline about Charles is going to be more important than Anne, Andrew or Edward. I thought the moon landing episode was the most boring in that season, but I think they had to include both Philip and Margaret episodes to attract the stars they have playing them. You notice that they don't hire high profile actresses to play the Queen Mother and there are no storylines around her. She's almost like a footnote in the series.

[quote]What has she done in the last ten years that is worth dramatizing?

She occasionally falls over on the sofa.

It seemed like "Dazzle" (Princess Margaret's bitchy gay seminarian friend) wandered right out of Datalounge.

A few years ago, she spent all her pocket money and had to take public transportation for her yearly vacation to Balmoral. Having to ride British Rail really humbled her.

R173, this is for you. The answer to your question is a resounding "Yes."

Of course, others died and the old bitch survived unscathed.

I agree that the way these seasons are timed out is a little odd.

I would have kept the original crew of Foy, Kirby, and Smith through Season 3 and ended that season around 1972/73. They would only have been playing characters about 10 years older than themselves, which they could have made work with the right makeup and wardrobe. I would have skipped Olivia Colman, Tobias Menzies, and Helena BC altogether and picked up with Imelda Staunton as Queen, accompanied by a couple of age-appropriate actors as Phillip and Margaret.

Season 4 should have been 1977-1986ish, ending with the Andrew/Fergie wedding and the serious cracks appearing in the Wales marriage.

Season 5 should be 1989ish to 1997, covering the scandals with the Wales and the Yorks and the ends of those marriages, the fire at Windsor, and ending, of course, with Diana's death.

Season 6 should time jump to around 2001 and take us through 2012. It would include the deaths of Margaret and the Queen Mother, Harry's teenage scandals, Charles' renewed courtship and marriage to Camilla, and Wills and Kate's relationship from first meeting to wedding. The series could tie up quite nicely with the Diamond Jubilee in 2012.

It should probably end with Charles’ marriage to Camilla. There is enough leeway there to look back on it.15 or so years is suitable gap.

Once George is at Eton and Charlotte is at Rodean, and the Queen dead, there will enough space to go into the Kate years.

It's entertaining the writing is sloppier and takes more liberties than it perhaps needed to. It's gone from drama into melodrama. The performances save it from the increasingly awful, lazy writing.

Wait, what NYC hotels have bidets and why didn’t she barf in that?

I want to see a one woman Camilla and her cigarettes show.

Thatcher should have been stoned in the streets of London.

She would never touch weed, R299.

Did the Iron Lady have those Queen and Prime Minister conferences like The Queen had the Blair and Queen ones? Is it worth watching?

I've read Morgan claims he tried to tell few stories, in the episodic sense, that were well known. That doesn't make a lot of sense when you consider his choices around Fagan, for example. Now you can't tell this story without telling Fagan, but then how do you not tell an attempt to kidnap Princess Anne in front of Buckingham Palace. I think they didn't know they had lightning in a bottle with the actress playing Anne, because she gets way more screen time this series and rightly so... she's vastly entertaining.

The friend of Dorothy line was ridiculous. So inauthentic. Half the audience probably didn't even know what it meant, let alone the Queen. And how would Princess Margaret not know she was hanging with a total 'mo. Ridiculous.

"Friend of Dorothy" seemed to me to be the wrong phrase. But if it passed muster with the writer, the director, and with Olivia Colman, too, there must be some valid basis for using it. "Poofter" would be too coarse for the Queen to use. "Invert" too antiquated. But "Friend of Dorothy" seems wrong to my American ears.

Any Brits posting here... What say ye?

Is the whole series a covert argument about why Charles should never take the throne?

Is the show hinting at Philip hitting on Diana and maybe have bedded her too?

I have never found Chuck and Di's story fascinating but I was captivated by the first episode.

The actress playing Diana is a serious find.

Diana’s great tragedy, and the reason she was so beloved, was that she was such a chameleon. In the Scottish countryside, she appeared to be a countrywoman, so the Royal Family thought she shared their love for it. To Charles, before their wedding, she appeared to be a compliant young woman who would be happy to play a subservient, domestic role. To the Queen, she was an aristocrat well-suited to join the Royal Family. To the public, she was one of them, whether that meant the crowd at the Opera in Covent Garden, patients hospital, or young women on the High Street.

Her great tragedy was that she had been brought up in her own dysfunctional family, always seeking to please and to gain attention, and then she joined another dysfunctional family. Even then, she tried her best to be what they wanted her to be. And in the end, when she couldn’t pull it off, she reacted with a level of vehemence and melodrama that none of her in-laws could comprehend.

She needed someone to stop her marriage well in advance. Instead, she married an emotionally damaged man who was the son of a woman who was emotionally stunted from being thrust into public life against her own inclinations and of a man who tries to micromanage his own family because he was left parentless himself when his mother was institutionalise and his father abandoned him.

Was the finale a wink and a nod to all those Downton Abbey Christmas episodes?

Btw, really good music started. Joy Division, The Cure... Love this period in music.

R310 Oh, did they play Love Will Tear Us Apart at some point, I missed that? I really wanted a scene of her or the family reacting to New Dress.

Article on the voice choice for Thatcher. This series creates quite the plethora of magazine follow up pieces unlike anything else. It’s practically helping to sustain that industry.

After this I’m kind of up for watching Anderson and Streep do dueling Iron Ladies.

Mmmm, Josh and his enormous schwanz.

Streep is much better.

Early mid 80s British indie music was a delight. Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure, Ultravox, The Banshees, Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, New Order. Season 3 also played How Soon is Now by The Smiths to emphasise Charles' melancholy.

I liked the scene where Diana rollerskated to Girls on Film. She fancied Simon le Bon and George Michael, big strapping men of 6ft 2 who were very different from pigeon chested Charles. Di was upset to discover that George Michael was gay!

Has Olivia Colman gained weight since Season 3? Was that on purpose or has she been fitted with a fat suit? She looks at least 50 lbs. bigger.

Dear lord!!!! What the hell happened to Anderson???!!!! That's the worst performance I have ever seen from an actress of her talent and skills.

British press savaging this so far! Tories are particularly insulted.

She seemed to be playing post-stroke Thatcher.

R317, Series 3 and 4 were shot together. One big job for everyone. There was no break.

R320 not true. Season 4 finished filming days before COVID.

I've watched the first three episodes and I'm underwhelmed. I think the issue is that since season three, the show has been jumping from event to event rather than telling a full story. The first season, and to a lesser extent the second, really were more about the characters and their lives. The whole first season is about Elizabeth becoming Queen and toll it takes on her marriage. Now it's like: this week is Aberfan, oh and look this week is a Charles and Di's engagement. It just seems they are rushing through everything. The best episodes of the Crown are the one's that focus on the personal lives of the family. For example, Coleman's best work on the series is when she goes with Porchy to America. The The show now is more of a disjointed series of events.

R320 There actually was a break between seasons 3 and 4. Season 3 was filmed from July 2018 until April 2019. And Season 4 was filmed from August 2019 and wrapped in March 2020 literally a day or two before lockdown.

I do love that they've managed to make this season very engaging without going into camp category. Everyone had their own little parts to play. It's really odd how people like Princess Margaret can't muster the energy to find a hobby and do something else with their time besides smoking up to 60 cigarettes a day (madness) and drinking. She must have smelled awful. Her husband probably left because he didn't like ducking a booz filled ashtray.

Other than Charles and Anne did the Queen have other children? If so where have they been?

Looking forward to the score being released

R325 Are you an idiot?

Then I stand corrected, sort of. That was a very short break, considering the number of settings and costumes to be prepared. If shooting began in July 2018, I suspect that actors were on the payroll long before that for dialogue preparation, wardrobe and make up tests. And before the actors were on payroll, the costumers certainly were, or there would have been nothing to fit or test with actors.

Same thing for the three to four short months between shooting Season 3 and Season 4. A few weeks off for vacation and then back to work on the pre-production work needed before shooting could start again.

I think the Diana actress is smashing!

Anderson’s performance has grown on me. It’s totally bizarre and yet so compelling. Streep’s dry mimicry doesn’t compare.

I think Anderson is doing a good job of making Thatcher her own rather than a knock-off of what Streep did. And Emma Corrin is a revelation as Diana.

The show had to compress the timeline, but in reality, Charles and Diana's courtship, though it took place over a year or so, really did only feature a few meetings before he popped the question. If her family had cared for her instead of the social cache of being Royal-adjacent, they would have insisted on a longer courtship. Given how young Diana was, it wouldn't have hurt anything for her and Charles to date for another year or two and really get to know each other. It's almost as if those involved KNEW that Diana wasn't quite right but were so eager for Charles to marry someone, anyone, that they ignored the huge red flags and just plowed on.

When does Fergie suck toes and Di fuck Hewitt? When does Charles tell Camilla he wants to be her tampon? When does the Queen mother make racist jokes while boozing it up? These are all very important to the whole picture. Oh, and let’s not forget about Pedo Andy.

And where is Princess Michael in all this? She can't be happy about being completely ignored.

I can't decide if Gillian Anderson is brilliant or a total flop. That voice she uses sounds as though Thatcher is on her deathbed. But her mannerisms are uncannily spot-on. I also think the actress playing Diana is terrific.

[quote] Oh, and let’s not forget about Pedo Andy.

How many times does it need to be explained the show's creator has explicitly said he's not going to deal with that in the series?

[quote]And where is Princess Michael in all this? She can't be happy about being completely ignored.

At this point in the story, Princess Michael was working on a degree in interior design. She also wrote several books. The Royal Family trashes her, but she was actually doing something productive besides living off the taxpayer teet.

[quote]That voice she uses sounds as though Thatcher is on her deathbed.

I think that is just Gillian Anderson's voice at this point. She sounded like that in the most recent season of Sex Education as well.

It must have been so bizarre to be British in the 80s and constantly seeing Margaret Thatcher on TV with that weird voice and weird hair lecturing everyone like some kind of nightmarish stern nanny and shouting "No! No! No!" all the time. I'm sure some people got off on it because they felt Britain had become too licentious and weak-willed during the 70s lean years (just like today the Deplorables get off on having Trump on TV saying rude politically incorrect and racist things), but the rest of the UK must have really become sick of her.

It still amazes me she was in power for so long--eleven years, which was entirely unprecedented then. There are no term limits for PMs the way there are for American presidents, and currently the longest an American president can serve is ten years (two terms, plus theoretically two years if he/she is VP and the sitting president resigns or dies or is removed from office). She would have kept going and going if she could have because she relished power so much and was desperate to hang onto it--finally her own party had to oust her because she was just becoming a parody of herself.

Apparently she did not have a happy few last years, despite being given a title and also being given the Order of Merit (a huge deal in the UK) and joining the Order of the Garter. All she wanted to do was politics, and once she as removed she was at a loss for what to do with herself. Nobody wanted to go to her for advice because she was so insistent and aggressive, and would become furious if you didn't do what she wanted you to do. Of course the daughter she didn't treat very well had to be the one who took care of her, while the son she adored continued being a gadabout.

So Thatcher's last few years were EXACTLY what she deserved.

r315 Meryl Streep is ridiculously hammy

It's almost impossible to play Thatcher without appearing hammy. She was such an over the top person. She had ridiculous hair and a ridiculous voice and a ridiculous walk.

[quote]I'm sure some people got off on it because they felt Britain had become too licentious and weak-willed

They're wet Denis. Wet!

ridiculous

JFGI R325

R142 My sister’s husband’s family had friends who were diplomats and who lived in London in the early 80’s. They sent their children to the nursery school Lady Diana worked at and occasionally she would babysit for them. They said she was very nice and sweet, however she had some unusual habits – one of them being that when she would make herself a bowl of cereal for a snack, instead of using milk she would add heavy cream. (Not clear how someone can do that regularly without gaining weight unless they barf it back up again.)

So it’s possible that the disordered eating habits started before she met Charles.

In the show asshole/fucktard, r344. DUH!!!!!!

Nice try, R346!

How does R346 have 6 WW in under six minutes for a nonsensical post?

I can see how Diana could eat like that at 18, given her teenage metabolism and unusual height. Also, teenage Diana, though not fat by any means, had plenty of flesh on her.

That said, I read a story in a Diana biography where one of the couples she babysat for in London were astonished when she ate all the stew meat out of the pot that was cooking for dinner. Sounds like the binging started early, even if it wasn't always followed by purging.

During the scene in E3 when Diana is encircled by the RF as their little plaything when she interrupts Margaret's story, where would Prince Phillip and the Queen Mother sit in the order of bowing/precedence?

It appears it went Queen > Queen Mother > Charles > Anne > Margaret - they didn't show her bowing to Prince Phillip.

Would it be the following order since Prince Phillip was present with the Queen that he has the second-highest rank? Did the Queen Mother, as a former Queen, outranks Charles and his siblings?

I thought it would be something like this.

Queen > Phillip > Queen Mother > Charles > Anne > Margaret?

[quote] Has Olivia Colman gained weight since Season 3? Was that on purpose or has she been fitted with a fat suit? She looks at least 50 lbs. bigger.

She's thinner in normal real life but she is definitely bigger on screen, so she may have gained some weight for the role.

Diana def had an eating disorder since school days. This is when most girls learn to scarf and barf. From each other. At boarding school. Diana's sister Sarah, the redhead Charles also dated, was famously anorexic and probably occasionally bulimic. It's not at all uncommon. I do like how in a later episode they show Diana assuming barf position...but then she decides not to do it. Good for her!

I read where Tina Brown says Corrin's portrayal misses Diana's "wiles." I agree. She's being portrayed as a totally innocent lamb. I'd like to see more cheek from her, that chipmunk giggle.

Maybe they are going to have her be more seductive next season to show the transition from girl to woman. They're going to be using a different actress too, Australian Elizabeth Debicki. She's going to have her work cut out for her, filling Corrin's shoes.

Watching Josh O'Connor playing Prince Charles I keep thinking about him butt naked in God's Own Country.

R14 oh please. His German side of the family were NAZIS. His sisters married Nazi Princes. He conveniently flight against them publicly but supported them privately

Are they planning on replacing Josh as Prince Charles, too? Have they announced who it will be? Can't imagine....

Source, R356?

They'll have to replace O'Connor for Seasons 5 & 6. You'll need an older Charles to pair with the older Diana. Also, I don't think any actor has appeared in more than 2 seasons unless they needed them for flashbacks or a brief death scene (as in the case of Churchill).

I thought it was interesting in E6 when Diana tried to hug the Queen she called her "Mama" with the accent on the first syllable. That's not very British, is it?

[quote]His German side of the family were NAZIS. His sisters married Nazi Princes.

Yes, everyone conveniently forgets Philip's Nazi ties.

I swear I read (maybe upthread!) that Charles will be played by Dominick West in seasons 5&6, which seems preposterous.

God he is so fucking sexy!

R357 apparently its gonna be Dominic West.

I'm assuming that Charles will take on a greater role in Seasons 5&6. So I imagine that they will cast a name star for the role.

Dominic West as Charles? No way!!

What about Matthew MacFayden as Charles?

What about Philip Martin Brown as Prince Philip?

It's not confirmed but West is heavily rumored.

David Tenant *is* Tony Blair. Russell Tovey *is* Gordon Brown

[quote] It appears it went Queen > Queen Mother > Charles > Anne > Margaret - they didn't show her bowing to Prince Phillip.

Philip is not of the British blood royal. The other five are.

The Queen always gets the first curtsy as the ruling monarch; the Queen Mother is the other HM in the room, and also always get a bow from everyone except the Queen herself. Charles, Anne, and Margaret are also of the blood royal, so they all get curtsys, and in order of how close they are to the throne.

The perfect casting for older Charles would be Benedict Cumberbatch, but I'm sure he's too expensive. They could get his cheaper doppelganger James D'Arcy, though.

Tennant's good buddy Michael Sheen can give him lots of tips on playing Blair. Though hell, why not just cast Sheen again?

None of those mentioned seem at all a good fit for Charles.

R368 Excuse me? Princess Alice thinks you are utterly full of shit.

So is the consensus that season 6 will end with the Diamond Jubilee in 2012? It's called the Crown. It will obviously end at a big Jubilee celebration.

MacFayden would also work as Charles, and he's at about the right fame level to take on the role.

It's too bad Patricia Routledge won't play the Queen Mother. She'd be perfect. Maybe Brenda Blethyn as the Queen Mother? Even though Brenda is 74, they would probably still have to age her as she doesn't look her age.

Whoever is chosen to play Charles better be tall as Elizabeth Debicki is 6’3”.

I hope the director has a tight rein on our Imelda so she doesn't give her usual turgid performance. Our Imelda gets by on scowls and the Her Majesty is not one to scowl.

I liked maybe 4 of the 10 episodes of Season 4. I was a little disappointed. Here's the surprise of Season 4 . . .

IRL, Diana was taller than Charles when she was wearing heels. As long as they find an actor who's over six feet tall to play Charles, he doesn't have to be Debicki's exact height.

Well Debicki is too tall. Diana was taller than average woman but she wasnt 6 feet plus tall.

Our Imelda is like 3'6". How are they going to stand her next to Debicki?

I looked it up and according to the internet Charles and Diana were both 5' 10".

It's too bad they won't do much with Andrew and Fergie. Ashley Jensen could play Fergie.

Vanessa Kirby is 5'7" and Princess Margaret was 5'1. That's a difference of half a foot. No one cared.

Who's going to play Lee Radziwill when she pulled that stunt about sitting in the wrong seat at the movie premiere and Charles and Diana got confused about which seats they were supposed to sit in?

r248, r286

[quote]I'm wondering what they will do for the next two season, given that they will go no later than 2003 (Golden Jubilee Year) or 2005 (Camilla and Charles's wedding),

[quote]Other than the Queen's "annus horribilis" in 1992 and Charles marrying Camilla, what's left to tell?

Death. Diana probably dies in season 5 (1990-1997). But afterward, both Margaret and the Queen Mother die, ending Lillibet's nuclear family. Probably other randoms die as well. So, IMO, Season 6 apart from covering some events, will focus on the Queen's sense of loss.

In 2005 Charles marries Camilla (Edward already has married Sophie earlier, but after Diana's death). So, IMO, Season 6 apart from covering some events, focuses on the Queen sense of loss.

By wrapping up with Charles and Camilla's wedding, the show finishes their arc. If they really want to play with fire, they can show the trial of Diana butler and how investigations into Camilla's support by the Duchy of Cornwall prompted the marriage.

A year later, Camilla's child marries and Kate attends. They can show her in the background wearing a very photographed outfit and a season end photo. The whole thing has a life goes on feel to it.

After the credits, we see Elizabeth as grandmother, great grandmother and Prince George as the heir. [bold]The Crown continues. [/bold]

r308

[quote] she reacted with a level of vehemence and melodrama that none of her in-laws could comprehend.

I guess her in-laws do not pay attention when they meet the Spencers. Vehemence, resentment, revenge and melodrama are family traits.

There's lots to tell with William and Harry in the 00s if they are willing to go there. Nazi-costume-wearing, pot-smoking Harry, William and his 'waity' Katie, etc.

Diana's grandmother was a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen Mother. Her brother-in-law also had a position in the palace. They all kept their mouths shut about how unstable Diana really was. It was a real life Margaret Johnson situation. "Let's unload the defective daughter before anyone notices."

[quote]There's lots to tell with William and Harry in the 00s if they are willing to go there. Nazi-costume-wearing, pot-smoking Harry, William and his 'waity' Katie, etc.

They need to do a whole episode on Harry getting nude in Las Vegas. The ratings will soar!

Will Megs play herself in season 7 and 8? Lol. I know they're not going that far, but talk about stunt casting.

Emmy Rossum as hated rival Kathy, Princess of Chambridge? I'm trying to think of super thin brunettes.

Thin Jonah Hill (if he can get there again) as Prince Harry for even MORE ridiculous stunt casting.

Clearly I don't know a lot of British young actors.

The problem is that NOBODY can't beat Louise Ford on The Windsors for playing Kate. She's perfect.

I wouldnt think they would get too far into the 2000s due to it being so close to present day. Didnt Morgan say he wanted space between the past and now? Or is 10 years enough? Who would play Diana boyfriends in the mid 90s? That surgeon and the one who died with her. Probably unknowns?

Princess Di was deeply in love Charles. Then she began to realize Camilla would always be number one. That’s what drove her over the edge. Like someone share up thread, the Tina Brown book is fascinating.

They should save Dominic West to play Dodi El-Fayed. And they have to tell that story because it shows Diana poking her finger in the eye of the crown by dating a "brown" man.

Diana was in love with the idea of Charles. She even told her family that one reason she wanted him was because he was the one man who could never leave her. (Little did she know, he'd left her before they even got married).

She couldn't love the man because she barely knew him, and she was too young and inexperienced to know what love was. Once her romantic dream decayed, she went into a full-blown borderline spiral and never really pulled out of it.

Does anyone know where to find a free digital copy of the Diana Chronicles?

The Kindle book is only 12 dollars, R396.

Just binged the Season 4. What I kept asking myself throughout the whole thing was "What the fuck do these people actually do?" . Thats what I got from watching this. A bunch of rich crybabies who flit from glorious house to glorious house with absolutely too much of nothing of any consequence to do.

What's the deal with Tobias Menzies (Prince Philip)? There's nothing online about him ever being in a relationship with anyone.

Interesting post, R398. The royals do a lot in British society. Perhaps the Brits know that well enough that, for them, it did not need to be dramatized or explained. But, yes, from the perspective of an American viewer, there's not much in The Crown there to explain why they exist at all.

[quote]"What the fuck do these people actually do?"

Apparently they sit around and talk about the animals they killed today. Or yesterday. Or several years ago. Or the ones they plan on killing tomorrow.

So what exactly is it that they do R400?

[quote] Diana's grandmother was a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen Mother.

Actually, both of her grandmothers were, although her Spencer grandmother had died in the early 70s.

[quote] Diana's grandmother was a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen Mother.

Actually, both of her grandmothers were, although her Spencer grandmother had died in the early 70s.

[quote]So what exactly is it that they do [R400]?

Export British culture. Their are millions of American fraus who drink tea and eat scones with clotted cream while they watch Downton Abbey. That's all down to Liz.

r368 I didn't think being a British born blood royal would matter since Phillip has the same rank that the Queen Mother once had as the spouse to the soveirng. Would everyone have to bow to Phillip like they did the Queen Mother and do with the Queen?

[quote] So what exactly is it that they do [R400]?

They... take an interest in the tedious, numbing ephemera that constitutes the life of the nation.

The Prince of Wales this morning visited United Kingdom and Canadian Service Personnel taking part in the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps exercise "Loyal Leda" at Royal Air Force Fairford, Gloucestershire.

The Princess Royal, President, World Horse Welfare, this morning attended the Annual Conference via video link.

The Earl of Wessex, Royal Colonel, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, and The Countess of Wessex this morning attended the Armistice Day Service of Remembrance at the National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, and were received by Mr. James Leavesley (Vice Lord-Lieutenant of Staffordshire).

The Duchess of Cambridge, Joint Patron, the Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, this morning held an Early Years Meeting via video link.

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall this morning attended a Service to commemorate the Centenary of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, Westminster Abbey, London SW1.

Well, somebody’s got to.

R406, no, he does not. She was a queen as the wife of a king. He is a prince who is the husband of a queen. Status extends from the husband. As Queen EIIR outranks the husband.

They also play silly parlor games. And judge people who do not like killing things or playing silly parlor games.

Phillip was a former Prince of Greece, a created Prince of the UK, the spouse of the current monarch, and a direct descendant of Queen Victoria and of King Christian IX of Denmark. Surely that merits him a decent curtsy.

Yeah, R409. They’re pretty much useless, clueless people.

By those rules set by r406 I suppose people won't be giving Queen Kate a bow one day? I feel like I've seen people bow to Phillip but now I'm not 100% sure.

Kate will be queen because she is married to a king she will therefore be entitled to the protocols appropriate for a queen. She’ll get curtseyed to.

People do bow to Philip. He is a prince of the United Kingdom and Royal highness so that’s the protocol.

r499 Tobias Menzies is probably still recovering from breaking up Kristin Scott Thomas' long marriage

R402, see R407. All that sounds like it could be true.

An American, I attended school in the UK in 1988 and 1989. I went there scoffing at the monarchy. But while I was there, the Pan Am plane was exploded by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland. It was a shock to learn of it on the night that it happened. In the morning, I turned on the television for more information. Members of the royal family were already there, viewing the sites where large chunks of the plane had fallen on the town, paying respects to the townspeople, offer condolences. The messaging was clear. The event was serious, the distress was real, and the people of Lockerbie were important to the United Kingdom. They're not running for office, these royals. No one was there looking for votes.

Shortly before Lockerbie, there was a terrible train crash at Clapham Junction, during the morning commute, just outside of London. 35 killed and over 400 injured. Members of the family were there, viewing the damage, paying respects and offering comfort. In the days after the crash, Maggie Thatcher went to a hospital in London to see people injured in the crash. What an uproar there was. What condemnation she received for that.

It took a while to begin to understand. The leader of the government is just that. The government. State matters are handed by the Royal family. It's removed from politics and very, very different that how things are done here. I came away from year there having great respect for the monarchy. That stated, I think the British royals could dial it back a little. Maybe a lot. But the role they play is crucial and the activities related to it are considerable.

All that curtsying got a little silly. It really is something they need to get rid of. But Charles won't.

I'm bulimic. I just forget to throw up.

There's very little curtsying and bowing done any more outside of formal occasions (excepting always to the queen, the only living HM in the UK).

It’s funny how the Klan Grannies go on and on about how demanding Meghan Markle supposedly was.... while in this season we see Princess Di throwing palace items around as a guest and breaking them, shrieking into the phone that the Queen had better get on the line, refusing to receive the Queen, etc. etc.

I guess she set a precedent!

I thought William intended to get rid of the curtsying when he’s king.

Women have been asked not to curtsey to Prince Philip because he looks at their cleavage.

r420 Diana had a completely different set of circumstances.

[quote]R39 the image of the boat exploding from below was brutally beautiful.

That scene was hilarious. Bye, bitch!

Why couldn’t more of his set been on the boat??

r417 they are bowing to the institution of monarchy, sort of like people DEMANDING that everyone stands for the pledge of allegiance to a flag (symbol of the nation). It's not so silly when you think of it in terms of national pride and reverence. Those people are symbols of the state's source of power, like a walking Constitution.

That said, Phillip should still outrank the Queen Mother when she was alive since he is the reigning monarch's spouce.

[quote]R423 Diana had a completely different set of circumstances.

Yes. She was white.

How much of a moron do you have to be to indulge your klan granny fantasies by confusing fictional Diana with real life Meghan Markle? You are as stupid as you are mentally ill.

The scenes of the crowds in Australia going wild for Diana brought back memories of how much of a superstar she was and how the public loved her. I can't imagine any member of the RF today getting that kind of mass adoration.

r427 you are an idiot and just need to shut up. Nobody likes Megan Markle. Princess Diana was an international superstar whose popularity transcended race, class and national boundaries. We will never see anyone like her ever again.

No, she did not r423. She was still a commoner that married into the family. Unless Charles was present, she was still the lowest ranking royal possibly outside of the Queen's cousins. Yet, she threw fits of rage at the injustice of the system.

I don't fault Diana or Meghan. At least Meghan and Harry left to do their own thing. Still amazes me how much shit they get on DL.

[quote]I thought William intended to get rid of the curtsying when he’s king.

And I will reinstate it when he is six feet under.

Ignore the Klan Granny troll, everyone. All it does is barge into any thread remotely connected to the BRF and spout the same lame talking points over and over and over.

Can’t we make a concerted effort to F&F it, R432? I am actually tired of that repetitive, obsessive cunt. I know her life is empty but she should be cut off on here like she obviously is from opportunity in real life. What a loser.

R429, i think your anger is misdirected. R427 is basically making the same point as you are.

Girls, you're all fat whores, so can we try and stay on topic of Season 4 of The Crown starring sexy Tobias Menzies and a few other people?

I have missed Matt Smith's pert round ass these last couple of seasons.

Perhaps Menzies also has a pert round ass, but he hasn't shown it as Philip.

I had the interesting experience of working as assistant to one of the editors (yes, there are more than one) of the recent HQ release "Finding Freedom". I thought you guys - especially the Crown sympathizers, like R423, r427 and r429 - might like to know that while the British Royal Family does occasionally come across rather poorly in the book, there were also definitely bits that, while verified to be true by numerous sources, were in the end kept from the finished draft. This was done mostly at the behest of one of our senior editors, who in addition to being quite old is also conservative.

For instance, it was left out that one of the main reasons Prince Harry and Meghan Markle left the U.K. is the noxious stench that fires from QEII's practically decomposing cunt. There is absolutely no way to remove it (the smell) from any room she's entered. This is one reason Miss Markle wanted to use air fresheners in St. George's Chapel at Windsor the day of her wedding. The Prince had warned Markle what it was like to live with this fetid, all-pervading stink but she had no idea it could be so bad. Ultimately, she felt it was best to raise her child away from the toxic reek, which court doctors still do not understand.

Anyway, ask me any questions if you like. My contract with the publisher's up.

R377 Love the series, but seriously? All that bitch does is scowl or phony smile like a simp.

R437 I have loved that comment every one of the 8,567,304 times you've made it.

I get the impression the actress is playing Camilla as early Patsy Stone and I'm living for it.

[quote] I have missed Matt Smith's pert round ass these last couple of seasons.

Smith was believable as a horsehung Phillip.

Menzies is hot but a little less believable as blowhard older Phillip

I'd like to see an episode devoted to Camila, just smoking cigs and drinking while being bawdy. I'd watch an hour of that.

I just realized the actress playing Camilla was one of the snatches from Call The Midwife

Funnily enough I find both the women well balanced. They are fully rounded characters. It’s Charles that comes across as a total asshole. For me the strength of Emma Corrin’s performance is the voice. It just makes everything she delivers so real. Great acting that sounds like Diana. It’s almost creepy.

Funnily enough I find both the women well balanced. They are fully rounded characters. It’s Charles that comes across as a total asshole. For me the strength of Emma Corrin’s performance is the voice. It just makes everything she delivers so real. Great acting that sounds like Diana. It’s almost creepy.

If anyone remembers a Jiffy Pop, that’s what Thatcher’s hair reminds me of.

Episode by episode it expands and expands and expands. Bigger and bigger. Much like the eighties. Maybe it was a visual allegory.

When she was binging, did Diana carry a snack purse?

I will be so curious to see who they get as Camilla for the next two seasons. Which actress who is fifty years old can look as wrinkled as camilla did at that age? She always looked like she was a full generation older than Diana.

[quote]R447 When she was binging, did Diana carry a snack purse?

I’d think it would be more of a plastic lined purse, for puking in.

Though maybe she just filled them up and tossed them (?) She could afford it.

I felt sorry for Margaret's obviously gay friend who joined the priesthood as a way to try and suppress his homosexuality. Always a sad, sad story. I wonder if he's still alive.

What's the name of the actor who played Dazzle?

Tobias Menzies' wig is very disturbing this season (I don't remember it being an issue in the last one). The hairline is too low and thick on the temples and forehead. In the photo posted above he looked like he'd have enough of his own hair to lresemble a middle aged Philip.

God, Margaret Thatcher was such a bitch. It's easy to see why so many Brits hated her.

Philip being asked by Liz who his favorite child is, and him answering "Anne!" without the slightest bit of hesitation, made me laugh. He would have been bullshitting had he done anything else in response.

R396- Here you go.

I’m on ep 2. I adore Gillian Anderson, and it pains me to say it, but her Margaret Thatcher is just missing something for me. She’s almost there but not quite. I hope she improves. The Diana, on the other hand, is fabulous.

Helena Bonham Carter’s mugging for the camera is even more obnoxious this season than it was last. Haaaate her.

I can add some second-hand accounts of Diana to this thread. A friend who used to lunch with the Queen Mum at Clarence House when in London was there in the days before the wedding when Diana was staying there. He was chatting with the QM in a drawing room and Diana stuck her head round the door to say "I'm just going out." The QM replied to her in a tinkling sardonic tone: "More shopping, dear?"

Another friend was with the media on the Australian tour, and they visited a children's hospital. Diana spotted a piano there and deliberately went over, opened it up and began playing -- clearly to draw the media away from Charles, at which she was successful. My friend said he knew right then the marriage was lost: she was clearly a damaged young woman. It was just such a bizarre, juvenile, and schemingly selfish thing to do to pull all the media attention away from her husband.

[quote] —Pretty daring of them to conclude which one of the 4 was HER fave.....

It's actually been often claimed that he's her favorite in the biographies of her--and I think the show did a good demonstrating why. As awful as he may be, he apparently used to make her laugh and relax the most of her four children (as Colman did a great job of showing).

I'm not sure if it's still true, of course--even before the Epstein story fully humiliated him, it was rumored she's closest now to Edward and Sophie, and sees them more than the others.

I wish we'd got more of the Vipers nest that was Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward together. That scene at Andrews wedding was great.

Apparently Anne gets along with all of them. As the show suggested, the biggest tensions have been between Charles and Andrew (although Charles made Andrew his best man at his wedding).

Well who else would Charles have as best man? One of the old fossils he hung out with when he was 32?

I’m 3 episodes in. This is my least favorite season thus far... stuff like the Queen saying “I assume you’ll have women in your cabinet” and Margaret being the voice of reason to stop Charles from marrying Diana (particularly the atrociously on the nose line, “how many times will this family make the same mistake?”) is like really bad fan fiction.

It sucks because this is the season with the meaty storylines and it’s falling flat for me thus far. I apologize if I’m being a killjoy.

How did Diana have such gorgeous skin, hair and teeth when she was bulimic?

^ Oh honey, I think most watch knowing damn well it is just a glorified soap.

Having finished the season, I can say it was much better than season 3. Even though it was so unpleasant, the Charles and Diana storyline was so engrossing I skipped the Michael Fagan and the Princess Margaret episodes at first, since I knew the Charles and Diana stuff would be put on a backburner in those epsidoes, and then watched those two stand-alone episodes separately at the end.

I still don't think it's as good this season as the first two, and for me that's because the first two seasons had so much stuff I didn't know about and also mostly romanticized the BRF. The Duke of Windsor was the only rotten member. Margaret was high-strung and often high-handed, but amusing; Philip was often rude (and it clearly suggested he had cheated on the queen), but he was basically a good egg. And as Claire Foy portrayed her, Elizabeth was an extremely kind and good person who only sometimes had to show steel to put things to right.

By this season, it's like watching an 80s night-time soap opera: "'Dallas' at the Palace," as the tabloids called things when the fights between Charles and Diana became more evident. Almost everyone in the BRF is either rotten to the core (Charles, Andrew, Edward, the Queen Mother), completely out of it and making things worse with good intentions (Philip), deluded (Camilla and Diana both, in different ways), or hopelessly pathetic (Margaret). Only the queen is any sort of a good sort, and she spent quite a lot of the season avoiding Charles and Diana and only making things harder for them because she was purposefully avoiding how unhappy they were. (cont.)

(cont.) The acting was topnotch, with everyone very comfortable in their roles now (which wasn't necessarily the case last season). The best by quite a margin was HBC in the Margaret episode (not a terribly well written episode, but she gave a master class in acting in it), and Colman doing her best work in the final "War" episode: she was very moving being generous to Thatcher at the end, and very satisfying tearing Charles's head off. I also thought Menzies was great, and enjoyed that he didn't have an episode spotlighting him again like last season--as a character he works best in truly supporting ways. Anderson was wonderful when Thatcher got to be comic ("The Balmoral test" was my favorite episode this season), but much less effective when she was supposed to be anguished (I thought she overdid things in the last episode). Corrin was excellent throughout--it's a star-making performance.

Even so, the direction and writing are just not as sharp as the first two seasons. There hasn't been a single episode as excellent as "Assassins" the first season (where Churchill gets his official portrait painted) or "Paterfamilias" the second (where Charles is sent to Gordonstoun). And Peter Morgan keeps going to the same wells too many times: he replicated the hunters/hunted metaphors at Balmoral (which he first featured heavily in "The Queen") not just once but twice, and in the season's first two episodes. There is also too much expository dialogue: Philip's drunken rant about being supplanted in Mountbatten's favor by Charles; the Queen Mother's explanation to Margaret as to why the two Bowes-Lyon sisters were institutionalized; and most of all, Anne's lengthy explanation to her mother of everything that was going wrong in Charles and Diana's marriage. It also seemed bizarre that we never saw any members of Diana's family other than her eldest sister and her grandmother, and so we got very little explanation as to why she was as damaged as she was by the time she met Charles. She was treated by the show more or less as if she had always been a literal orphan.

I also wish the show had been braver over its run as to show why the Queen's children are so miserable. She was obviously a bad mother because she was so preoccupied with state matters she could not give them the affection they needed while growing up, but they only really showed that with regard to Charles last season with the Wales episode; since they never established she and Philip were also remote from and feared by Andrew and Edward, their monstrousness seemed to come out of nowhere.

I'm hoping not everything is so sour next season: I would like to see in the next two seasons how she became closer to her grandchildren than she was to her children, and also (probably in the sixth season) how Charles began to mellow and become less of an asshole to everyone after he and Diana finally divorced.

I'm six episodes in and things get significantly better after episode three. Olivia Coleman is clearly far more comfortable as the Queen this year and has moved away from the stern and emotionless demeanor she did last year. Emma Corrin is knocking it out of the park, the hugging scene between Diana and the Queen is iconic. Gillian Anderson has Thatcher's mannerism down pat, but I just am not as in love with her performance as I thought I would be. Overall this is a marked improvement over the third season and I think the best season since the first.

R465 Which is the Margaret one so I can skip it?

R462 It gets better after the wedding episode.

What was Edward's bitchy comment?

r470 in its not on YouTube but here's a gif of it.

r470: the royal children are all gathered in the huge room off the front balcony of Buckingham Palace dressed up for Andrew's wedding to Sarah Ferguson, right before leaving for the ceremony. It's been established earlier in the episode Andrew was asking Edward to be his best man rather than Charles just to spite Charles for making little comments about wanting to create a slimmed down monarchy when he becomes King.

Anyway, they're all dressed up, waiting to start, and Andrew whines that his mother's squabble with Thatcher is pushing news of his wedding off the front page, and that "the marriage of the Duke of York should be a landmark event." For some reason, Charles just lays into him because of this, icily snarling Andrew has now become only a "fringe royal" because he's been pushed away from being second in line to the throne by the births of William and Harry. Charles then stalks out, with Andrew staring at him open-mouthed, and Edward says admiringly of Charles as he leaves, "That was impressively cunty!"

Thanks r471 & r472

Not really enjoying GA's portrayal of Thatcher. I almost find it cringeworthy. At times, it's like she's straining to have a poop when she speaks, when that's not how Thatcher spoke. Thatcher spoke with much greater authority than what GA is portraying. The actress playing Diana, on the other hand, is killing it. She's by far the standout.

Just finished 3 and 4 and this season is far better than the last one, partly because we're spending less time with the actors playing the Queen, Philip and Margaret who are all, in my opinion, not ideally cast in their roles. And, Emma Corrin IS terrific as Diana and the younger characters and their soapy storylines are more fun than watching the older generation just get older and duller.

But, I do agree that the show is getting soapier as the cast gets larger and the focus goes to the younger characters and their woes. The first two seasons of the show worked best because it was really all about the Queen and her relationships with Philip and whoever was the Prime Minister with Margaret's life as an interesting B story.

I like the gay one best...which one is he? Oh yes, Edward.

I feel its more .

[quote] QEII: I love all my children equally

[quote] (Earlier that day) QEII: I don't care for Charles

What a bunch of fragile egos. Every one of them.

[QUOTE] How many times does it need to be explained the show's creator has explicitly said he's not going to deal with that in the series?

Except he already did, in E4, by getting young Andrew to talk about a Koo Stark film called The Awakening of Emily, in which 'a 17 year old girl is surrounded by predators and paedophiles'. His exact words and a definite allusion to the older Prince Pedrew.

I'm not saying Diana was perfect by any means, but had Charles honestly committed to the marriage and told Camilla bye instead of having everyone, including her then husband, enabling the relationship, then things most likely would have turned out for the better.

I always thought that Camilla was more of an intellectual match for Cambridge educated Charles, but I recently discovered that she only has one O level and no academic education post 16.

I hope Emma Corrin will play Diana again in S5. It would be easy to age her a little with make up. She only needs to look 36 max and she'll be 25 when it films.

r480 Or you know he'd always secretly resent her for having to give up the love of his life. Meanwhile they'd still have nothing in common, and be trapped in a practically loveless marriage. She'd always outshine him and win popularity contests. She'd still have underlaying mental health issues she has to deal with on the world stage. Plus even if you remove Camilla its not like he doesn't have enough willing women around him to have affairs with. I can't see anyway that marriage isn't a disaster for everyone involved.

It's an interesting idea about Corrin for 5. Diana didn't age all that much, was only 36 when she died... her hairstyle matured and she'd gained weight (looked healthy in my view)... could be done.

It sure puts the pressure on the succeeding actress to get the voice down.

The actors playing Diana and Prince Charles have TERRIBLE posture. I’ve watched episode 1 of the new season and I’m enjoying it. Too much Princess Anne though, who cares about her equestrian pursuits?

Regardless of what you may think of this season, at least in episode 5 we almost got an answer to the burning question whether QEII wipes front to back or back to front.

I love Anne and the actress but she feels shoe horned in... it's not so much there's a story for her as lets use her for comic relief because she's such a bitch. Still, great for the actress in the long term and good for her.

Elizabeth Debicki is playing Diana in Season 5. She'll get the voice down. Terrific actress, plus glamour and height.

I want my drag name now to be Dazzle

I cannot believe how well Emma Corrin worked. Still surprised by it. Remember the awful Naomi Watt thing and that was as good as it got. If anybody else played her it was so bad I've forgotten.

I do think he got the sequencing wrong. I always got the impression they did reasonably well out of the gate and then the incompatibility started to become evident but things really didn't start going off the rails hard core until after Harry was born. Although I guess she was throwing herself down the stairs and the like when she was pregnant with William. I could have seen less Thatcher and more storytelling around the failure of the marriage because you get the impression the narrative they chose was Charles, evil, one dimensional bastard and Diana, in over her head victim who went a little nuts.

One question from Australia: was anybody else confused by Charles' declaration of love?

Because I'd seen nothing to suggest that was coming but I also thought it was genuine.

I find it odd that prince Charles has only one sibling

[quote]I love Anne and the actress but she feels shoe horned in... it's not so much there's a story for her as lets use her for comic relief because she's such a bitch.

I don't feel as if she is.

In this season she serves as confidant to the Queen who is close enough to her that she can talk to her one on one and give insights that the Queen couldn't pick up as she is distanced from most situations, the only person that is willing to talk to Charles that he trusts, doesn't immediately berate him and isn't sleeping with him and finally she represents the path that Diana was expected to take but didn't. Rather, both women are unhappy in their marriages but Anne suffers through it like Diana was expected to. However, if she can't stand her either while she seems to understand her.

[quote]you get the impression the narrative they chose was Charles, evil, one dimensional bastard and Diana, in over her head victim who went a little nuts.

I think in the scheme of things they made Charles pretty three dimensional. The Charles we felt bad for last season hasn't necessarily been replaced by this man who the Queen beautifully reads to filth at the end of the season. We saw how the family treated him and now we're seeing what it has done to him. While all the while we know all of this could have been avoided had he just been allowed to be with Camilla. Diana on the other hand may not have attempted to steal the attention from Charles intentionally at first but you start to see her taking more ownership of it as the season goes on. She is just at the beginning of becoming much more savvy.

What's the name of the show? The Crown. Who wears the crown? Elizabeth II. Not Charles. Not Diana.

There was just waaaaaaaay too much Charles and Diana in this season. Entirely too much. Neither wear the crown. Focusing on them was a time consuming mistake that goes no where. They made their lives public fodder for years. This series added nothing new to our understanding of them and, even if it had, it would be tangential to... the crown.

Out of Series 4, in many ways I appreciate the Michael Fagan episode the most. His message tied Elizabeth to the drastic changes being wrought on the UK by Thatcher the Snatcher. The discussion was entirely fabricated, but dramatically, it made a lot of points about the times and about the character of Elizabeth. She handled it well. Of course, she did. She's well accustomed to being in control and went right to it. It helps the series to see her tested and see her prevail. She handled Fagan easily, but handling Thatcher was much tougher. Handling her children is impossible for her, except to cut them off at the knees. She is better with her public duties than she is at home. Just the sort of thing that might happen to anyone devoted to the crown.

The episode was entirely fantasy. Fagan admits to being high on mushrooms. He undoubtedly had no coherent message to convey and was probably easily handled until security officers arrived. But as written in this episode, he enriched the character of Elizabeth. The attempted kidnapping of Anne might have done the same for Elizabeth and for the series. We will never know. Instead, we got Charles and Diana once again flailing in a sewer of their own design and Elizabeth once again withdrawing from it.

Erin Doherty, Emma Corrin, and Emerald Fennell. Let's see them in something special (and entirely unrelated to The Crown.) You can do it, Netflix!

Ill admit I dont follow Charles at all, but is his posture REALLY as piss poor as it is portrayed?.it's really distracting.

Disagree, R493. I think you miss the point. This is the story of the The Crown, not the person who wears it. The institution: its demands, its cruelty, its purpose and how the lives of those within its domain are affected by its existence. So that's the whole family and the court.

R494 No it isn't. It's a very annoying acting affectation by Josh, and I wish he'd stop.

Show needed more 70's Action Charles.

Neither Elizabeth nor Philip would have allowed Charles to slouch like that. Elizabeth would have hectored him into an eating disorder of his own and Philip would have beaten near to death. The slouching connotes weakness and that's the exact opposite of what the monarch must convey. Dramatically, it would have been better to see Charles fighting to relax a bit than to be collapsed for.... 20 hours of video?

I agree that this season had to put Charles and Diana on the front burner. You couldn't get 10 episodes out of the Queen's trials and travails in the 1980s. She didn't have that many.

The Charles and Diana marriage was doomed because they were both looking for the nurturing and support they never got from their parents. You can't have two needy babies in one relationship--someone has to be the Mummy.

R467, stop misusing and overusing the word “iconic”. Silly millennials.

It is the case, of course, that The Royal Family did become a soap opera in the ‘80s so much so by the mid-90s the monarchy was threatened by their own irrelevance. It’s not so much the presentation of the history as it is the history itself.

I mean, honestly, why had there been no Royal tour of Australia since 1954? These people did very little to earn their keep.

We needed more of this Charles and less of Josh O'Connor's defeated, broken whining.

[quote] why had there been no Royal tour of Australia since 1954?

Eh? Here's a list as long as your arm.

Charles was obviously incredibly jealous of Diana. That people still persist to question her mental health as if she were somehow unable to function is a sign that misogyny is alive and well in 2020. Of course she struggled in that marriage - who wouldn’t, Charles treated her like a bauble over which he wanted full control, right down to her wattage and merely cast her as his wife without ever being a husband to her. Of course the patriarchal instincts amongst us still want us to believe there was something wrong with her but Charles was always a nothing - he was only slightly interesting when he was with her - and once his mother dies, the monarchy will be fully reformed. He will never truly be a King.

Diana was an absolute royal star. I’ve lived in London since 1996 and the intensity of the coverage of Diana on a daily basis was immense, it was everything. When she died, it was like there was no oxygen. The outpouring of grief was like NOTHING I’ve ever witnessed. And the public turned on the Royals, even The Queen (as we know) - each long day she refused to address it, felt like a week. And, let’s be honest, there’s never been a Royal like Diana and the Royal Family has never been the same since.

I agree with the poster who said the script is like fan fiction. What's curious to me are the posters who are taking it all literally: "How dare they be mean to Maggie Thatcher at the parlor game!...I can't believe Charles said that to Di!"

I completely agree, R497. I was trying to explain to the millennial I was watching with that Charles was not this complete hunched-over wimp as depicted.

r502 Speaking of the 1954 visit to Australia though this video is fascinating.

Being shallow and picky, I can't help being distracted by Emma Corrin's straight little nose. I keep wanting Di's long, bumpy aristocratic one. It's the one thing taking away from the performance for me.

I don't understand people who want more focus on Elizabeth and less focus on Charles/Diana and other characters.

The show has to follow the interesting action. As Elizabeth ages there is less drama to make the focus of the television series, of course it starts putting a lot of attention on the younger generation.

Do you want an engaging television program or not?!

Well Josh is done playing Charles anymore so you won't have to see it again r497.

We will see if Dominic West carries over Josh's physical acting choices.

r510, it's about the royals so I want it dull and dreary

[quote]The show has to follow the interesting action.

No. It's up to the writer to make every script interesting. It can focus on anything in the world, but a good writer has to come up with interesting ideas and explore them in a way that is engaging.

Surely, the Elizabeth has interesting things that cross her desk. King Lear does not focus on the children. It focuses on the monarch. The Crown should have done the same. The producers and writers turned it into a soap opera.

Well people seem to be loving this season r513, so it's worked out for them.

Some people, R514. You certainly do not speak for them all.

R515's tiara is out of joint

Most people, dear.

Morgan has said he wanted to explore stories not as known, as much as possible.

Would have been interesting to explore how Charles got to be such a dick because Philip and the Queen and Charles are well told.

So how did he become so entitled?

Similarly the Queen Mother was a very bad influence within the family: damagingly devoted to the heir, a spend thrift, really resistant to change. There was some stuff to mine there.

I can't wait until the cunts of Datalounge put out their own, CORRECTED version.

R517 Charles’ entire generation is entitled, and he’s but the perfect representative of it.

I have yet to encounter a generation that does not regard itself as entitled.

Every generation is entitled. Childhood is the preparation. Adulthood, up to middle age, is about asserting yourself and making you place in the world.

Everything after that is the long, slow, descent into the abyss.

I've enjoyed the show a great deal. But, as a student of history, it pains me when the Crown veers off the actual history for purposes of drama. Its misleading and it confuses people as to what really happened. People form opinions about events and the participants in them based on the writer or director's agenda for the episode.

[quote] But, as a student of history, it pains me when the Crown veers off the actual history for purposes of drama.

Mary!

In regard to the Princess Margaret episode (#7) I think a real dramatic opportunity was missed by not having her actually enter into the home where her Bowes-Lyons cousins resided to meet or at least view them. Even if that never happened, it would have properly put Margaret in her place to understand the sad reality of their situation and why they'd been hidden away. That episode was the weakest for me, all the scenes in in Mustique were boring and led nowhere. And I thought it remarkably unbelievable that the Queen had to tell Margaret that Dazzle was gay; it should have been the other way around, if anything.

Oh, I loved that Felicia, Lady Montague née Windermere, was living on Mustique. That was a great twist and gave the episode added spice.

The only reason the Conservative government put Thatcher on the list for a baroncy was so she couldn't come back as PM.

r523 FUCK YOU!

I guess for you- ignorance is bliss.

R253, shouldn't that be : Queen Mary!

r526 Most former PMs used to go up to the Lords for that reason. Though now they've realised they can make more money outside Parliament (Blair and Cameron), or mock their successor like a Greek chorus (May) I expect that practice is pretty much dead in the 21st century.

Thatcher died alone at the Ritz Hotel. Dennis was long dead and her children couldn't be bothered to deal with her advanced Alzheimer's.

[quote][R253], shouldn't that be : Queen Mary!

No.

Mummy loves me best.

[quote]R458 It's actually been often claimed that he's her favorite in the biographies of her--and I think the show did a good demonstrating why.

I’m convinced they’re fucking. Nothing else can explain the unnatural intimacy, favoritism and blind-eye-forgiveness.

It’s like the Queen is in thrall to his cock.

[quote]I guess for you- ignorance is bliss.

I guess for you- irrelevant pedantry is ecstasy.

I'm really sorry Princess Diana died, I am. But I'm so sick and tired of her portrayed as some doe-eyed angelic character wronged by this awful, entitled family. She knew exactly what she was getting into. She grew-up privileged, in wealth most people can barely imagine. She moved in those circles. She could not have been the naive, brutalized cherub she's made out to be.

Her death was horrible and she was a great role model. But she didn't cure cancer. She wore, very, very expensive couture, went to lots and lots of parties and "charity" events. She walked around some landmines and brought some attention to them. Overall, she did good. But she's no Mother Theresa and no Gandhi. The myth around her being a constantly tortured, pure soul is just silly.

It's been rumoured that Andrew is Lord Porchester's son.

This season of the Crown is probably the most dramatically engaging since the first, but it's also the most historically inaccurate. This is a great breakdown of all the things the season got wrong.

R535 Mother Theresa and Gandhi were fucked. Gandhi was a racist cunt, (research him in South Africa) and Theresa kept people in poverty rather than helping them get out of it.

I thought the Queen not bathing Charles despite her wanting to summed up the fractured nature of their relationship as if it was a sled named Rosebud.

I dont really care if there are some inaccuracies. It's not a documentary.

Diana was a teenage girl and there is no creature on Earth dumber or more willful. Those of you who have tried to reason with teen daughters know this.

R541.....why would we have teen daughters? Are you lost?

It's the 21st century. Gay men are allowed to have children.

[quote] Morgan has said he wanted to explore stories not as known, as much as possible.

It's a delicate balance to hit, but I think they've done well. I like that it's not just pantomine of the BRF's Greatest Hits.

19-year old virgin, modestly educated Diana was part time help at kindergarten and cleaning houses. Not the lap of luxury as I understand it.

[quote]R545 19-year old, modestly educated Diana was part time help at kindergarten and cleaning houses. Not the lap of luxury as I understand it.

She was a [italic]part time cleaner of cock,[/italic] possibly.

It was all a cover.

R353 - I personally loved Diana but am under no illusion that she was perfect. I feel Charles and Diana were a bad match. Somebody said it further up, they both needed something they did not get as children and neither could give the other what was needed, so it was doomed. It is both tragic and sad but we really do not have the full knowledge of the dynamics of their marriage and what really happened behind closed doors, we only heard one side. I say this with experience, BPD is not easy to cope with for the sufferer or the person close to them and I doubt that she ever really had proper treatment. It's been so many years now, yes he cheated and he was wrong but I see no need to keep bludgeoning the man again and again over it. Nobody is perfect, I never really subscribe to this mentality that some people are saints. Even Ghandi and Mother Theresa definitely have their skeletons, as R358 has said. I do personally think Diana was magnificent, though and she did some good things. She did have tremendous star quality and there'll never be anyone else like her. But yes, she did have faults.

r535 put this into perspective. She was a 19 fucking years old, while Charles was 32! That alone is madness. I mean really, it's almost funny how no one thought how weird it is for a grown man to marry and groom a 19 year old. She missed out on her formative years as a young woman. As soon as possible, Charles had her nocked up and pregnant.

So she did not know what she was getting into and only had about 13 courtship types of encounters with the Prince before he popped the question.

Yes, she was in a privileged situation, but it was also fucked up. An old man took a young girl's virginity, treated her like a breeding horse, then broke her by running off to a woman that actually looked like a horse.

A little prespectie should be brought into this situation.

Didn't Diana push some bitch down some stairs?

It's interesting a Guardian columnist would call out the inaccuracies as a serious problem. Talk about an unlikely defender.

As the Queen is still alive, I see no reason to stop at any point. People want to see the last 40 years as well.

[quote] She was a 19 fucking years old, while Charles was 32! That alone is madness. I mean really, it's almost funny how no one thought how weird it is for a grown man to marry and groom a 19 year old. She missed out on her formative years as a young woman.

Oh, honey, that's a bit of a stretch. He wasn't exactly an old man. Yes, there was an age difference. Yes, she was a bit more naive about the world. But the way you're describing the scene makes her sound like she was 13, not 19.

A lot of us had parents that came from a generation where mothers had a child or toddler at 19.

I wonder if anyone was giving Diana advice about her relationship Charles, her family, for example?

Sorry, my post at 547 was meant for R535, not 353.

I remember when they got engaged, and it wasn’t really thought to be all that shocking that she was 19. Different times.

I want to lick those strange long wrinkles on Tobias Menzies' face.

r552 that may be true, but I'm sure most of your parents could have seriously been in school at the same time. If C & D were American, he would have been a Senior in HS when Diana was entering into 1st grade, ew. Or if she wanted to take Charles to prom, he'd be her 31 year old date., um no I don't see how that's not awkward. If she was old I think it would have worked for everyone because she'd know herself and have some life experience before jumping into that crazy family.

He was basically an old man by 32. Gone were his jet setting days, he had settled down into a country estate. Lived a worldly life in his 20s and became lame from his 30s onward. Charles didn't even see a point in going to McDonald's. You know slum it, why not. Imagine going through your entire 20s married to a stick in the mud that couldn't wait to run off to his mistress but berated you for getting dick on the side.

Diana couldn't go out and party, she couldn't do normal 20 year old things, she had two kids, backstabbing staff, a cold family, and a dead marraige. She 100% has faults in this situation, but I give the girl a break considering the fact that she was basically a groomed child bride when compared to her husband.

Do the Brits even do prom? Especially with all those weird O level stuff and how later years of high school are called college?

The role of a future King’s wife is to be a broodmare. Kate knows this very well and has performed her duties. The fact that Diana didn’t know this, way back when and coming from an aristocratic family herself, tells you how incredibly stupid she was. And how stupid her family were not to sit her down and inform her of her duty.

r559 Kate had time to choose and get to know the family while enjoying her party years (at yachts, clubs, etc). Their experiences are hardly comparable. Kate even had the chance to pretend to have a job for a few years. She knew well of Williams's attitudes and views.

Kate was 29. Diana was 19. Not even comparable. I'm in my late 20s, no way was I the same person or half as mature at 19.

Three questions: 1) How far do you think Season 5 will go? Up to and including Diana's death? 2) Do you think they will do a Season 6? 3) What did Margaret Thatcher's daughter have that bizarre accent where she couldn't pronounce her R's? Len Goodman on Dancing with the Stars had it as well (true becomes "twue"). Is that particular to a region of England, or just a speech impediment?

I don't profess to be an expert, but I vaguely recall that at that point, Charles had *passed his expiration* (look wise), however, since he was the future king, he had to get married - period. But because he had to marry someone - and a virgin at that - his choices were considerably narrow. Yes, Diana was really young, but she was likely raised to grow up & be some wealthy man's wife - she wasn't exactly scholar material.

I too kind of get tired to the Poor Diana trope; she was an incredibly charismatic woman who unquestionably reshaped the monarchy and raised handsome sons that will continue traditions when boring old Chuck & Cammie are gone.

I would like to see season five with Diana heading into the Paris tunnel and cutting to black.

Just finished the first episode

"You might be surprised to learn that about 90% of the ‘Greatest Generation’ (the people who fought the actual Nazis) would be canceled using today’s standards for racism and sexism."

The "Greatest Generation" didn't have a problem with cancelling people for being gay or non-white. And not everyone in the "Greastest Generation" fought Nazis, anyway.

According to the two biographies I've read, it was Diana's decision to get pregnant with William so quickly. The family wanted them to wait a couple of years until Diana was more settled in her role as Princess of Wales. But Diana desperately wanted to be a mother--like many damaged women, she thought a baby would fulfill that aching empty place inside of her. And while she did love being a mother, it certainly didn't solve any of her mental health problems. In later years, every time she had a new lover, she started talking about marrying him and having his babies. She never really changed.

Season 4 episode 5 is the best episode of the series. Amazing writing, acting and direction. Actor who plays the intruder should win an emmy.

I cried when I saw it

Yes, R543. Obviously.

But why would they want to, when they could have a dog?

I think Corwin lucked out with only getting one season in the Crown, it’s an audacious career making role, but she is less likely to be typecast or limited by her breakout unlike others established by a TV role that defines them for the rest of their careers. And with a season dropping all at once, it’s more like a movie or miniseries, so it will follow more along a star making turn in a film rather than series. Her next few roles are key to establishing her someone on the rise to being an A-lister.

I don't understand why one poster was shocked at the idea of the Queen knowing the "Friends of Dorthy" code. Her mother, whom she was close with, filled her Dowager Palace (Clearance House) with gay men that loved to gossip. The Queen and the Queen Mother were close, I'm sure the Queen Mother would have gotten a kick out of that code word and slipped such a term to the Queen and Princess Margaret.

The Queen's people have also already shown a knack for giving her intel on Margarett's men from S1-S3.

And, her yougest son likes cock so maybe she studied up on the topic after the incident wth the stable boys reached her ears.

r527, you really are quite a delicate little blossom aren't you? "Pained" by historical inaccuracies, and then driven to tantrums by even simple "Mary!" ripostes. and It sounds like the world, television, and the Internet alike are all far too taxing for your sensibilities.

I love how cunty Margaret has become. "Prostitutes and Australians. Isn't that who lives in Earl's Court?" Fantastic.

That was extra cunty of you r573.

I've been watching the Crown since it debuted and I've loved every season. Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher this go-round is sublime. They might as well go ahead and engrave her name on the Emmy, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards. I predict she'll sweep them all and deservedly so.

[quote] What did Margaret Thatcher's daughter have that bizarre accent where she couldn't pronounce her R's? Len Goodman on Dancing with the Stars had it as well (true becomes "twue"). Is that particular to a region of England, or just a speech impediment?

In Elmer Fudd's case, it's meant to be a parody of a speech impediment called a rhoticism. I think in the actress playing Carol Thatcher's case it's more of an accent.

R356, you couldn't be more wrong. Philip had no sympathy for the Nazis, despite two of his sisters having married Nazi supporters. In fact, he risked his life in the fight against Germany. He had German ancestry, as do the Windsors, but he was in fact a man without a country until Britain became his adopted country. If you read his wartime letters and letters from the post-war period, you will see he had no sympathy for Germany.

The scene where Diana dances for Charles at the theater or I think it’s actually the Opera House. Is that Edward backstage helping in the prep with the dancer? I recall him doing some kind of internship with ALW.

[quote]I can't wait until the cunts of Datalounge put out their own, CORRECTED version.

This made me laugh.

For those complaining that The Crown is a "soap opera." Well, guess what? It really WAS a soap opera.

R579 still is!

I think if Diana had lived to see Meghan, she would've pushed Meghan down the stairs.

R581 she would’ve talked Harry out of marrying her. I have no doubt.

If Diana were alive, Meghan would never have been more than a dirty weekend for Harry, assuming they met at all. The Queen Borderline would have accepted no pretenders to the throne.

Diana would have been loving but exhausting for her sons. Harry would have ended up with a lowkey Kate type.

[quote]I love how cunty Margaret has become. "Prostitutes and Australians. Isn't that who lives in Earl's Court?" Fantastic.

Yeah, but actually, it's quite true.

R22, I like how the podcast called Diana’s stepmother Rain Legs because they didn’t know how to pronounce Legge!

That's a good point. If Diana hadn't died Harry, while still familially dim, probably wouldn't have been fucked up in the way he was fucked up that allowed him to think marrying his first wife was a good idea. So, really, this is all Charles and Camilla's fault.

R587 well then he should be fine not taking any more of their money.

There was an article recently... Tina Brown, who is publishing another book, but confirmed Diana was involved with the billionaire, Teddy Forstmann, but that even he ran in terror because she was sooooooo needy.

Too bad she couldn't make it work.. he died in 2011... she'd have been rich, rich, rich.

I wonder who Diana could ever have married. I actually think she had - probably a kind of snobbery or common sense - that knew how to distinguish men... the Hewitts, the Fayeds... those were sex toys and publicity stunts... I can't see her having married Fayed, even if he hadn't lost his head. Maybe she never would have married again.

The Brown article was in the Telegraph.. not sure if they give any freebies before the paywall kicks in... here's a couple snippets:

According to Brown, not only had Diana reconciled with Prince Charles but she had even “accepted” Camilla Parker-Bowles – the so-called “third person” in her marriage.

“At the end of Diana’s life, she and Charles were on the best terms they’d been for a very long time,” Brown insists. “Charles got into the habit of dropping in on her at Kensington Palace and they would have tea and a sort of rueful exchange. They even had some laughs together. It was definitely calming down, the boys were older. They talked about their philanthropies. And she had accepted Camilla. One thing she had finally done was really understand that Camilla was the love of his life, and there was just nothing she could do about it.

But she said to me at that lunch that she would go back to Charles in a heartbeat if he wanted her.”

Yet as Brown points out: “Diana was desperately lonely. She still wished that her marriage could have survived. She didn’t say, ‘I’m so happy to be divorced’, she said, ‘I think we would have made a great team’.”

It cannot have helped that thanks to what Brown describes as the princess’s “disastrous taste in men”, she had not managed to make a success of any subsequent relationship, scaring off the likes of heart surgeon Hasnat Khan with her “possessive” behaviour”. She embarked on an affair with Brown’s millionaire friend Teddy Forstmann, who described her as “the loneliest person he’d ever met”.

“She’d call him over Christmas Day, at times when everybody else was doing things and she would tell him how lonely she was. Like everybody she got involved with, he found her just terribly demanding and needy and no one could assuage that need.”

She needed someone to nurture and be devoted to her like Camilla is to Charles

I really don't understand what Diana's problem was. I could have made it work. So what if Charles ran off to Camilla. Diana was Princess of Wales and headed for future Queen. If she were still alive and married to Charles, at this point in her life, she would just have to show up occasionally, smile and wave. She wanted for nothing, could have whatever she wanted. I'd be sitting around with my feet propped up, reading a book, drinking tea and eating expensive chocolates and anticipating what shows the National would be presenting this season.

[quote]... could have whatever she wanted

She couldn't have whatever she wanted or what she needed ... which was love and affection from that frosty bunch. She got it from the public.

She also was never going to be content with staying in her place as the Royal Family saw it. Of course, knowing now what we didn't know then, she still wouldn't have been Queen at this point anyway.

It is such a shame she couldn't have sorted herself out emotionally, but even with your head screwed on straight it would be hard to be married to a man who was no companion and in love with another woman, no matter what rewards and luxuries life brought.

They probably would have made a good team if they'd been able to hang on until middle age calmed them both down... but always Camilla, I guess.... he just wouldn't live without her. Fair enough, but what a price paid by so many.

Honestly, Charles needed a wife like Melania, someone who wanted the status and money, played by his rules, and turned a blind eye to everything else.

The scenes of Diana binging made me hungry!

The actor who portrays Michael Fagan is Tom Brooke, who was equally wonderful in Preacher.

I knew I knew him and it was from Sherlock... those lean people with those ice blue eyes always play the crazies.

So if you're out there, lean and ice blue eyed, get an agent. There's a lifetime of small parts for you.

Kate's great advantage over Diana is that she had Diana as an example of what not to do. Diana had no such example.

Where is Thread 2??

I will make it.

Thread Two

R561 Netflix has confirmed there will be two more seasons (5 and 6). Peter Morgan has also stated they won't be covering Diana's death in detail because he already covered that in the 2007 film The Queen. My guess is season 5 will end with Diana's death. And season six will take us to Charles and Camilla's wedding.