‘The Crown’ season 6, part 1 review: Leave Diana alone

The Crown, now in its sixth and final season, used to be a fun drama. Remember the days when Elizabeth demanded the loyalty of her husband not just as her spouse, but as prince regent? Or the devastating exchange between Elizabeth and Margaret recalling that one was their father’s pride, and the other his joy? Remember Margaret zipping around on the back of her first husband’s motorcycle?

A royally fun show, now dull

The entertainment value from The Crown initially came from the early days of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. It’s likely that most viewers had not been born at the time of her coronation in 1952. As such, the drama and intrigue came from situations unfamiliar to audiences, especially to Americans.

The central hook of The Crown was that it followed Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, and now Imelda Staunton) from her coronation to the 21st century. But since Season 4, Princess Diana (first played by Emma Corrin, now by Elizabeth Debicki) has been the central character. This echoes real life drama. 

One episode this season sees a concern that Diana, no longer part of the royal family, outshines the royals in public eye. The media is far more interested in Diana dating Egyptian film producer than it is in Charles (Dominic West) or the Queen herself. This season is about as interested in the rest of the royals as the news cycle was in the late 1990s, which is to say, not at all. Diana on vacation is more interesting than Charles begging the Queen to attend Camilla’s (Olivia Williams) 50th birthday party.

An unnecessary two-part drop

Streaming used to appeal to viewers because full seasons could release on the same day. But cultural conversations move so quickly that streamers are moving to a week-to-week model — or in this case, splitting seasons in half. Netflix previously utilized this method with Stranger Things, prolonging cultural interest in Season 4 across five weeks. Just when we were done talking about the first half of Season 4, the second half arrived, and the conversation continued.

Season 6 of The Crown streams in two parts. Part 1 consists of four episodes, while the final six episodes of the series drop in December. Part 1 centers almost entirely on Diana and her tragic passing in 1997. By splitting the season, it feels as if Netflix wants to continue the conversation around The Crown for more than just a few days as everyone binges the episodes. In theory, it works — when you get half a season, the last episode in Part 1 should make you desperate for the next. But when you end on a tragic note, is anyone really clamoring for more?

I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending

The problem with centering Season 6 on Princess Diana is everyone knows how the story ends. Every scene drips with somberness like hourlong foreshadowing. The Crown is predicated on the idea that nothing about royal life is a fairytale. Season 6 isn’t so much about Diana as it is about people obsessed with her — the paparazzi, her former in-laws, the royal family’s press team, Dodi’s father Mohamed (Salim Daw). When you reduce the most famous woman of the 20^th century to the way she’s perceived, The Crown isn’t insightful about the dark underbelly of royal life. It’s fan fiction about a woman under a microscope.

The fourth episode centers on the response to Diana’s death. It imagines her as a vision or ghost having one final conversation with Charles. One wonders what the real Diana might say if she could speak with the creative team. Between Spencer, The Princess, and The Crown, she’s never been laid to rest culturally. Any interest has only intensified in the 26 years since her death, analyzing her death as obsessively as her life. Perhaps the series should have ended when the story reached her first meeting with Charles and teasing her appearance Avengers-style. If it did, we could imagine a world where fairytales are real, and her story has a different ending.

Season 6, Part 1 of The Crown is streaming on Netflix now. Part 2 drops December 14.