Gers wrote:
The Crown, Season 6
How can something that started out so sublimely end up eyeball melting appalling as this pile of dross?
Where to start. Prince Harry would be a good shout. The characterization obviously written by a committee of Mail readers. Stroppy teenager, check. Jealous younger brother, check. Schoolboy bully, check. And the actor playing him just didn’t grab the position of the Prince. But there you go. The casting wasn’t very good this season, more of which later.
Princess Diana’s ghost visiting both her Maj’ and ex-hubby Charles was certainly something I didn’t see coming, and neither did the pair of them.
But all of the above was outdone by Carole Middleton. This would have you believe that her whole life was focused on steering her eldest daughter into the arms of the world’s most eligible bachelor. Absolutely ridiculous. Cringe worthy lines about showing her legs off to their best effect being the least shit.
The last episode, the queen planning her funeral, was quite simply maudlin and cloying. The final scene of her standing before her coffin in an empty abbey, flanked by her younger selves was taking barrel scraping to an olympic level.
But the biggest problem I had with this was the cast. Dominic West is just too well known to play Charles. You didn’t look at his and see the Prince Of Wales, you saw the guy who played Jimmy McNulty in The Wire. Likewise Jonathan Price as Philip. Just too well known for other things, and in all honesty he wasn’t very good in this. The biggest thing this had in previous seasons was the casting, which to a fault was always exemplary. This final season was badly let down by the cast. But there you go. Like her Majesty it had to end somewhere.
I think the Crown suffered a bit by bringing it almost up to date. As it went on you start getting more and more people remembering the events that they are covering and that brings its own sort of bias about situations (not really the right word I guess but the best I can think of at the moment). That and the widely spread issue of shows dragging things out too long whilst not knowing how to stick the landing hurt it a fair bit.