User Reviews

This is a frustrating episode. After Charles' shenanigans after being exposed by a wire tap, he goes public and comes up smelling like a rose (which I guess didn't happen). This leads a sleazy reporter to pick Diana out for an interview, allowing her to say what she wants. So they first go to her brother and convince him that there are spies and evil people out there. They make false documents on their computers, making it look like these people were paid off to watch her every move, including those whom she trusted, who are close to her. Once the die is cast, she begins to trust this person, who says whatever she wants to hear. We also see her utter loneliness play out. She is on the verge of having an affair. I know some are saying they don't understand the adoration of this woman. That's not a criticism of the show--that's personal. The point is whether they captured her being, warts and all. Is the show accurate?

S5 of The Crown is a slow-burn but I still found it entertaining and bingeworthy. It doesn't quite reach the heights of S4 - which won all seven drama categories at last year's Emmy awards, how to top that?! But S5 is still prestige TV and highly worth viewing.

This is meant to be a review of the show, not of the monarchy, or whether Princess Diana was saint or sinner *spoiler: as with every human, it's likely she was neither, and The Crown does well to traverse the balance.

'No Woman's Land' is really pt 1/2, with 'Gunpowder' pt 2/2. These are strong episodes, especially when viewed together. The focus is on Princess Diana, her paranoia, and how the infamous BBC interview was nefariously obtained by Martin Bashir. Elizabeth Debicki gives a fantastic performance as Diana, absolutely inhabiting the character. It's way more than doing an impersonation or adopting singular expressions.

Debicki conveys Diana's loneliness, her vulnerability, her hope to love again, and her strength in continuing to fight "the system." Debicki makes it credible that from the inside Diana believed she wasn't being vindictive by spilling the royal tea (earl grey?) to the world. She wanted her side of the story to be told, and was largely conned into doing so.

S5 definitely has pace-and-flow issues overall but these two episodes didn't. The following episode 'Couple 31' is even better, exploring the complexity of marriage and divorce. That episode would receive Oscar nominations if it was a film.

I consider this a good sort of set up episode as in laying the groundwork for some fireworks that we know are on the way. Having said, there were some memorable moments in this episode. The scene about the BBC and its position in the modern world. Also the intimate and soft moments between Dianna and Dr Khan. Two people from very different worlds and backgrounds. I feel Dianna was trying to be a normal person and live a normal life where she would be cherished, ultimately that is what she craved. She saw something in the simple, hard working and ordinary Doctor who made such a difference to the lives of ordinary people.

Overall a passable episode.

This season doesn't excite me as much as the last one. In particular, the portrayal of the Queen lacks complexity and at times dignity in my view. Charles seems less awkward than his role model in reality. His physical portrayal also doesn't remind me of the original. I didn't think Diana was played badly. I don't presume to judge the reality content, but a lot of things didn't seem entirely believable to me. The strong focus of individual episodes on secondary protagonists was well-intentioned, but disrupted the flow for me. The seventh episode is called "Niemandsland" in German, which can be translated as "Neverland" and could be seen as an allusion to Bashir's much criticized documentary of Michael Jackson's life. A reporter who probably didn't shy away from plunging others into their misfortune for his own fame.

This season is just such a waste- it feels like we've waited an eternity (we have) for season 5, and with each episode I've been loathe to finish, I find myself in a peculiar position; that of forcing myself to get through them in one viewing, and with the possible exception of Mou Mou, I have yet to finish a single one all at once.

In previous seasons, I've felt ravenous for more, like I needed to consume the whole thing in one delicious sitting, gorging myself on all the episodes in one gluttonous view, no matter how many hours it took because even though I knew full well what was coming, I needed to bear witness to the story and I would not be the only person unaware of the glorious conclusion, unable to engage in conversation, fear of missing out.

But this particular season finds me shutting off episodes part way through, sometimes multiple times. Something I've never done with this show before, but I just can't engage myself into this maelstrom of unmanageable disjointedness. There's no ebb or flow to this, nothing to insist itself upon me and my time, even though I have enough of it to give to at least a single episode, I become so withdrawn and lost in other thoughts I find I'm rewinding to see what part of conversation was missed or just continuing on with little care as to what I missed in the first place.

It's not horrific, it's perfectly okay as melodrama goes- like watching that escapist soap opera during semester finals to just rest your brain and it will do just fine, but you're perfectly content to put it back on the shelf until you need a respite again. It's lacking in so many ways it's difficult to pinpoint the exact problem but nonetheless they persist and I'm not even all that curious to see where the season leaves off.

As a whole, it's a perfectly fine combination of actors and words, but taken together it's like watching oral surgery performed; it seems painful, uncomfortable and unnecessarily complicated for complications sake. I've already laid out my discontent for West/Charles, but it needs to be expressly laid bare how banal and laborious Diana's character is. She reads as unhinged, completely anorexic (by this period she was on the thinner side but still a stunning woman) whose bones protrude in obnoxious ways, and on the verge of lunatic fringe, when in reality this was simply not the case. This portrayal seems intent on relying on two things, a single 'look' of hers- downturned head with eyes turned up, looking coy, and that of a deer in headlights, nothin in between, no nuances or depth.

This season seems content to be nothing more than the last gasp of something once great but now devoid of character- content to exist in banality, dwelling all too comfortably in mediocrity. I've not even a desire to finish the episode much less the season, which I'm sure I'll do at some point but I'm pretty okay with letting it languish in my 'continue watching' area of Netflix.

What a disappointment this season has largely been.

Bad casting, weak direction, and a devious script has turned The Crown into a mediocre soap opera. Elizabeth Debicki is implausible as Diana, totally overdoing the head-down-eyes-up pose. This season is proof that it takes more than just a large budget to produce a good series. I have found myself nodding off several times in some episodes, and at times tempted to just switch off.

The casting in previous seasons was far superior, as was the script writing.

Netflix insists this is a work of fiction so we shouldn't expect historical accuracy, which I find strange considering the subject matter and the fact that many of the characters portayed are still around today.

Now we know where Harry got his talent for self-pity. Both his parents were whiners, but this latest, boring episode consisted almost entirely of Diana explaining her sadness, describing herself as a celestial creature doomed to a life of desperate loneliness and ready to try a frog after her prince "broke her heart."

Dr. Khan is the haplessly described frog, bewildered by this famous woman's pursuit of him. Was she even his type? Was she anywhere close to an intellectual equal? We'll never know.

Other things we may never know is just why Diana had no friends or close family, but had to pay for confidants by way of acupuncturists and astrologers. Even people like Al Fayed sometimes make dear friends from their servants, but we do know that Diana fired 40 of her maids for very little reason. In this episode we see her kindness to the sick but that other side of her is safely tucked behind the curtain as it is to this day.

Here we also see how easily the Spencers, never noted for their brains, were fooled by the dishonest journalist and it is a disgraceful moment in the BBC's history. But as con-men are fond of saying, you can't con someone who isn't greedy and Diana was always greedy for the public's adoration so she's more than eager for her TV debut.

Those of the population who were also divorced, had the in-laws turn against us, and felt strongly that our own side was the right side, might envy Diana her chance to tell the world about her husband's infidelity while leaving out her own, and garner loads of sympathy about all she'd been through. However I think most of us would have stopped ourselves before airing our dirty laundry in public and hurting our children in the process.

If I was from Pakistan I would take offence to have my real struggle to fit in and even succeed at work in Britain compared to the "challenges" of an aristocrat who lived her life among luxuries without the need to work a single day in her life.

And yet, the endless whining: "Poor me, I am so lonely in my palace and must swim all alone in my private heated pool, while hundreds of commuters are squeezed in the tube, heading to a workplace they probably hate and for a miserable wage... but hey, I am so unhappy".

To this day I will never understand the mass hysteria that swept over England about Diana Spencer, a not particularly endearing person from my very unpopular point of view. She loved children, being a victim and occasionally could be viciously vindictive... and that makes her special... why? Because she was blonde and pretty?

Honestly.... it's sad. To watch how absolutely extraordinary this series was during the first and second season is to now.

An odd thing, the closer we get to present day, the harder it gets to tell the story, any story. The further away, from history... the better?

The focus on Diana, in my honest opinion is the issue. It's like no other narrative matters. The series is so hyper focused on Diana, nothing else matters. It started last season, and it's to the detriment of the Series.

The first season was extraordinary, and everyone that's followed has pulled further, and further away from reality and struggled.

It's a Diana Soap, I feel bad for the actors at times because they are so special.