The Ups & Downs of The Crown from Netflix

Six episodes into Season 3 of The Crown on Netflix I am ready to pronounce that it has bounced back and transformed itself from a mid-century pageant to a brilliantly acted and conceived experience of Queen Elizabeth II’s household.

Allow me to back up briefly.  And, really sweeties, don’t worry if you haven’t seen it yet, how can there be spoilers on a historical drama? “Oh my God, I had no idea London was bombed!” has nothing on the Red Wedding (which by the way, the actor who plays Season 3 Prince Philip actually attended).  Come to think of it, there were really no spoilers to be made of Game of Thrones either except where it departed from the books.  But I digress… (someone must have a blog or a handle of @ButIDigress, right?  There was a time I bought up domains like they were Baltic Avenue or Reading Railroad.  You never knew when someone was going to land on them.  Now it turns out, you do know.  No one ever lands on them.  Check out www.ButIDigress.com if you don’t believe me.)

Anyway,  we thoroughly enjoyed Season 1.  Queen Elizabeth II was beautiful, young and learning on the job.  Her guide was John Lithgow as her first prime minister, a stunning characterization of Winston Churchhill.   Some of the later scenes with Lithgow out at his country home when he was getting his portrait painted were among the best television I have ever seen or contemplated–so well-written and executed as to change what is possible.  

Behind all that were the costumes, the cars, the castles, the time backstage with people who are simultaneously historical and seemingly perpetual contemporary figures in my lifetime.  

From those lofty heights it was a steep decline to Season II.  It took a few episodes to notice that John Lithgow, the writing and the novelty had all left the palace.  What remained were the gowns, the cars and too much of annoying Prince Philip and Princess Margaret jealous of Elizabeth’s power and rehashing much the same conversations. 

The production gap between Season 2 and Season 3 may not have been particularly attenuated but it was long enough for me to forget that I was done with it even though  I watched so much better television in the interval.  And so, when it came to my attention that The Crown Season 3 had arrived, I eagerly dove in.  (Come to think of it, I should ask my husband why he even wanted to watch it.  I remember us being SO bored in the second half of Season 3.  Unlike me, my husband doesn’t usually forget that he didn’t like something). 

In Season 3 (unlike almost anything I’ve ever watched, unless you count the move from Dick York to Dick Sargent to play Darrin on Bewitched), the leads are all recast as they move from young adult to middle-aged (Elizabeth and Philip), or small children to young adult (Charles and Anne).  

The new Elizabeth and Philip are breathtakingly portrayed by Olivia Colman (who won an oscar for best actress in The Favourite–a portrayal of a VERY different queen and is NOT to be missed as a detective in Broadchurch) and Tobias Menzies (Game of Thrones, Outlander) respectively.  Colman I expected to be amazing.  I had NO idea about Menzies who is basically just blowing me away.   Menzies plays Philip as loving, brilliant, scheming and hapless all at the same time and pulls it off.  

I did NOT expect Bellatrix Lestrange to be playing Princess Margaret but Helena Bonham-Carter (who is not so much an actress as a personality) is totally working for me in the role.  And now I’ve just met and fallen in love with Josh O’Connor playing 19 year old Charles as he becomes the Prince of Wales.   The relationship between him and the smartly portrayed Princess Anne seems a little incestuous but that just keeps it weird and adds a nod to the Game of Thrones audience who, frankly, mostly isn’t watching due to the appalling lack of violence and dragons.  Jason Watkins gives us Labour socialist Prime Minister Harold Wilson (a fairly dull public figure) in a nonetheless nuanced compelling fashion.  

Beyond the writing, the acting and the characters there also seems to be an especially deft weaving and excavation of key moments in mid-century British history (almost none of which I was aware of) and The Crown’s participation in them.  Somehow each episode seems to stand on its own in a way that I’ve rarely experienced.  Each has its own flavor, depth and feeling, more as if each is a mini movie than an episode in a show.  Yet they are connected by their characters and more, some divine intelligence of production has expertly chained them to each other.  

I highly recommend Season 3 of The Crown.   You could even get away with starting on that season and not be lost since you basically know who everyone is and how they got there.  Except for Porchey.  You might have to go back to Season 1 to understand Elizabeth and Porchey’s important connection.