The Crown S5 TV Show Review: Needs More Diana
The Crown Season 5 is another season of royal family drama with many attempts at humanizing its characters. At the heart of this season is the sparring between Princess Diana and Prince Charles during some of the prime years of their lives. As much as I appreciated the attention to detail and the exploration of different characters in each episode, I was mostly fascinated by any scene with Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki. Unfortunately, Diana isn’t exactly the star of the show for all 10 episodes, so there were moments where I found myself watching the show with a slight air of disinterest, just waiting for the moments when the Diana story would come back.
We can’t enter a new era of The Crown without discussing the turnover of the cast. I was absolutely riveted by the casting when I saw the first teaser trailer for this season. From just a physical appearance perspective, I thought they nailed it with Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana, and Olivia Williams as Camilla Parker Bowles. The further along this series gets, the closer to the present day it gets, which means that viewers are probably a lot more attuned to how the real life people looked like during this period of time. When I compare someone like Dominic West to King Charles, I am a little thrown off because I really don’t think they look alike at all. Of course that has nothing to do with his acting, which was great!
What this season seeks to portray, like all of the seasons before it, is a royal family that is growing and shifting with the tides of contemporary society. Some of the more senior royals are coming to terms with the fact that they have entered the later years of their lives as they reflect on long lost loves and find new hobbies. And the younger generation has grown up, gotten married, and are dealing with their own demons. When there are so many characters to explore, the focus of the show definitely seems to have shifted away from Queen Elizabeth. She is often present, but never really doing much. And the more the season explores other characters and storylines, the more disjointed it feels.
This season also does its darn-dest to humanize Prince Charles and Camilla. I thought it was illuminating to learn that Charles was progressive and suggested great policy ideas that actually came to fruition. But who am I kidding, I still felt very attached to Diana’s character and storyline. I can’t wait to see how her story continues to develop into the next season (although we all know what tragedy is about to come).
I think this season of The Crown is great, but understandably overshadowed by the intrigue of Diana. It continues to be filled with interesting characters, well-thought-out storylines, and little epiphanies that will make you go onto Google and search “did this really happen?”. I hope that in the next season, this show gets really deep with the oncoming emotional trauma and damage that is yet to come.