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The Crown (netflix)


LonghornSean

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13 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

 No. 

The Queen technically has "reserve powers" that include appointing the prime minister, opening and closing Parliament, and approving legislation. However, those have constitutionally been stripped, and made to be just ceremonial rubber stamps. The people elect the prime minster and parliament approves legislation. So basically no, no power. 

But...

To say the Queen has no power would be ignoring her influential role as figurehead. The UK people love the Queen. Her approval rating is close to 80%. I would say a large chunk of Americans are obsessed with the royals too (insert every female in my family). She has influence. If she disapproved of something, it would naïve to think she couldn't influence something by her words. 

 

None of those powers are explicitly laid out in a constitution, its simply been a matter of standards and good faith acting. As we've shown that stuff isn't as reliable as it used to be.

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Another great season 
thatcher was over acted, too many time ls she sounded like she was recovering from a stroke 

I agree. It’s weird because Gillian Anderson is a great actress and she typically has very understated performances. She just seemed to be a little over the top in her desire to show all of thatchers mannerisms.

She pulled the look off brilliantly but over exaggerated the dialect imo. I feel as though I can judge her performance since I was an extra in four movies.

Lastly, I wish they had kept the original actors and just aged them. The second crew are all great actors but look nothing like the original cast at all.
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On 11/20/2020 at 1:50 PM, BonzoMontreaux said:

This.  He makes Philip the most likeable character on the show.  Based on that portrayal, Philip is the only person I would want to meet from that bunch of assholes.

He'd have found you an insufferable bore, and your silly John Bonham/Led Zeppelin joke completely inappropriate.

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We just binged season 4 this weekend. Extremely well done and this may have been the most beautifully filmed season to date (or maybe I'm saying that because I finally upgraded my Netflix account to 4K). A couple thoughts:

  • Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies do an exceptional job as QE and PP. Colman's talents are widely known, but Menzies rarely seems to get the credit he deserves. In particular, his scene in the final episode of the season where he consoles Diana at the xmas gathering and counters her "outsider" comment by explaining how everyone in the RF is an outsider, and that they must subvert their existence to serve the only person who matters in their universe was first rate.
  • The Charles/Di relationship was obviously over sensationalized for dramatic effect, but I think that's to be expected. They essentially condensed 7 years of marriage into one season. You can find sympathetic notes to both sides of the relationship--as presented--and also see the selfishness that comes from living with that level of entitlement. They resisted the urge to put Diana on the top tier of the saintly victim pedestal, stopping one or two rungs lower by hinting at her own petulance and how she used the limelight to stoke her own considerable ego.
  • Anne is great. If they don't address her kidnapping in season 5 (via flashback) it will be a criminal oversight. The producers seem more determined to force the tragedy of Princess Margaret on us . Helena Bonham Carter is chewing through scenes in the role.

With two full seasons left and Morgan stating that the finale won't bring us any closer to the current day it will be interesting to see which characters & plot lines they choose to focus on. I'm assuming season 5 will cover the continuing disintegration of C&D's marriage, culminating in her death in Paris. That would be only about 8 years from where season 4 finished, leaving plenty of time to go back & flesh out other stories (Anne). Season 6 could easily cover an aging Charles, his marriage to Camilla, and QE's plans on succession and title for Camilla which would get us to about 2015 or so. 

I can't wait to see Dominic West as Charles. 

 

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9 hours ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

We just binged season 4 this weekend. Extremely well done and this may have been the most beautifully filmed season to date (or maybe I'm saying that because I finally upgraded my Netflix account to 4K). A couple thoughts:

  • Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies do an exceptional job as QE and PP. Colman's talents are widely known, but Menzies rarely seems to get the credit he deserves. In particular, his scene in the final episode of the season where he consoles Diana at the xmas gathering and counters her "outsider" comment by explaining how everyone in the RF is an outsider, and that they must subvert their existence to serve the only person who matters in their universe was first rate.
  • The Charles/Di relationship was obviously over sensationalized for dramatic effect, but I think that's to be expected. They essentially condensed 7 years of marriage into one season. You can find sympathetic notes to both sides of the relationship--as presented--and also see the selfishness that comes from living with that level of entitlement. They resisted the urge to put Diana on the top tier of the saintly victim pedestal, stopping one or two rungs lower by hinting at her own petulance and how she used the limelight to stoke her own considerable ego.
  • Anne is great. If they don't address her kidnapping in season 5 (via flashback) it will be a criminal oversight. The producers seem more determined to force the tragedy of Princess Margaret on us . Helena Bonham Carter is chewing through scenes in the role.

With two full seasons left and Morgan stating that the finale won't bring us any closer to the current day it will be interesting to see which characters & plot lines they choose to focus on. I'm assuming season 5 will cover the continuing disintegration of C&D's marriage, culminating in her death in Paris. That would be only about 8 years from where season 4 finished, leaving plenty of time to go back & flesh out other stories (Anne). Season 6 could easily cover an aging Charles, his marriage to Camilla, and QE's plans on succession and title for Camilla which would get us to about 2015 or so. 

I can't wait to see Dominic West as Charles. 

 

He is in record saying he doesn’t like to end anything with 20 years of current time, so my guess is it ends in 2002 with the Golden Jubilee and Queen Motherla death. They happened 2.5 or so months apart from each other so a good bookend to close on imo.

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59 minutes ago, The Ace of Aces said:

He is in record saying he doesn’t like to end anything with 20 years of current time, so my guess is it ends in 2002 with the Golden Jubilee and Queen Motherla death. They happened 2.5 or so months apart from each other so a good bookend to close on imo.

Also what I think. 2002 is a natural ending. Margaret also died that year 

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On 11/19/2019 at 8:45 PM, McCroskey said:

Just finished Aberfan myself..now debating whether to start Ep. 4 or be reasonable and goto bed.  This season is really great...not missing the prior characters like I thought I might.

Edmure Tully is really doing a great job as Prince Phillip.

Phillip is just a miserable bastard, isn't he?  Holy shit, what did Elizabeth ever see in that guy?  He just sucks all the way around.

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22 minutes ago, Texas St. Armadillos said:

People are freaking out with the show.  Royals are pissed that it is portraying them in a bad light.  Guess they fucked around and found out.

Only got up to S04E02 so far -- and it was an excellent episode from an entertainment point of view.  But I could also absolutely see how it could be cast as a wildly exaggerated retelling.  Im not a fan of the royals but theres no way the whole gang could have been that crass and insensitive towards the PM on her Balmoral visit.  It takes away the authenticity and credibility that the show built up over the previous 3 seasons.

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6 hours ago, 52-80 said:

Only got up to S04E02 so far -- and it was an excellent episode from an entertainment point of view.  But I could also absolutely see how it could be cast as a wildly exaggerated retelling.  Im not a fan of the royals but theres no way the whole gang could have been that crass and insensitive towards the PM on her Balmoral visit.  It takes away the authenticity and credibility that the show built up over the previous 3 seasons.

Not sure that was portrayed that differently - Thatcher didn’t play nice from all accounts. 

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We here in the states have our own royalty in celebrities, sports figures and some politicians.  From Barrymores to Kennedys to Kardashians, we invented our own royal families.   Theirs just have more rules in place and a longer history, which makes them more stable and also less likely to change. 

The fact that QE, PP and PC had no charisma but huge inherent insecurities made them loath others in the family who did, like Diana and Margaret.  They could not see how to use all the pieces of the puzzle to make the monarchy stronger as a whole, because they all (particularly PC) were too busy being petty and jealous.     And I think they hid behind protocol often to protect themselves from being upstaged by someone with better ideas.

On the other hand, it shows some mettle on QE's part when it came to the Apartheid.  

 

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14 minutes ago, pyrohornIII said:

We here in the states have our own royalty in celebrities, sports figures and some politicians.  From Barrymores to Kennedys to Kardashians, we invented our own royal families.   Theirs just have more rules in place and a longer history, which makes them more stable and also less likely to change. 

The fact that QE, PP and PC had no charisma but huge inherent insecurities made them loath others in the family who did, like Diana and Margaret.  They could not see how to use all the pieces of the puzzle to make the monarchy stronger as a whole, because they all (particularly PC) were too busy being petty and jealous.     And I think they hid behind protocol often to protect themselves from being upstaged by someone with better ideas.

On the other hand, it shows some mettle on QE's part when it came to the Apartheid.  

 

Yeah I think back to the like PP says in the final season 4 episode - being in the royal family means you give up everything for ONE person.  They're already insecure, either by title, by place in the line of succession, by ambition, and its even worse when they have to put it all aside to appease one person. 

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15 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Yeah I think back to the like PP says in the final season 4 episode - being in the royal family means you give up everything for ONE person.  They're already insecure, either by title, by place in the line of succession, by ambition, and its even worse when they have to put it all aside to appease one person. 

And it's really not that one person, but that one position.   Many time QE had to toe a line different than she wanted because it's what the position demanded.   

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They really show Thatcher as a near total weirdo with almost zero redeeming qualities or charisma aside from when she’s getting crapped on by royals in Scotland. You watch what she does and are mystified by how she got where she was and why anyone listened to her or liked her, aside from the one episode where she sent the Royal Navy to dunk on the Argentines. 
 

But regardless of your opinion of her politics, she was probably the most effective politician in the UK of the second half of the twentieth century, anywhere. When the end came it was ugly, but it would have been good to show her, if not in a kind light, then at least as someone who was competent.

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1 hour ago, 956 Worldwide said:

They really show Thatcher as a near total weirdo with almost zero redeeming qualities or charisma aside from when she’s getting crapped on by royals in Scotland. You watch what she does and are mystified by how she got where she was and why anyone listened to her or liked her, aside from the one episode where she sent the Royal Navy to dunk on the Argentines. 
 

But regardless of your opinion of her politics, she was probably the most effective politician in the UK of the second half of the twentieth century, anywhere. When the end came it was ugly, but it would have been good to show her, if not in a kind light, then at least as someone who was competent.

I agree with most of this. Thatcher was shown as less impactful than she was in real life. The PM from last season, Wilson, was shown in a more favorable and effectual light. Which is odd given Thatcher’s long serving term (11 years) and her foreign and domestic policy impacts. 
 

I don’t agree with the comment about the  Royal Navy slam dunking on the Argentines. Sure they won, but the Brits took some heavy losses. HMS Sheffield, HMS Coventry, a frigate and several aircraft. Exocet missiles became famous because of the Argentines sinking Royal Navy ships. So I wouldn’t call it a slam dunk, and I don’t know if I’d say they covered the spread. But they won, and that’s the most important thing. 

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3 minutes ago, DeepEastTexas said:

I agree with most of this. Thatcher was shown as less impactful than she was in real life. The PM from last season, Wilson, was shown in a more favorable and effectual light. Which is odd given Thatcher’s long serving term (11 years) and her foreign and domestic policy impacts. 
 

I don’t agree with the comment about the  Royal Navy slam dunking on the Argentines. Sure they won, but the Brits took some heavy losses. HMS Sheffield, HMS Coventry, a frigate and several aircraft. Exocet missiles became famous because of the Argentines sinking Royal Navy ships. So I wouldn’t call it a slam dunk, and I don’t know if I’d say they covered the spread. But they won, and that’s the most important thing. 

Yeah, the dunk thing is an overstatement— a lot of strategy nerds still really geek out over the Falklands and what it means for modern naval warfare. But at the time, a lot of serious Brits questioned whether recapturing the islands was possible at anything close to an acceptable cost. And the Argentine populace was totally shell shocked and it destroyed the military’s reputation and helped cause the junta to collapse.

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1 hour ago, kevwun said:

I know someone who was in the UK Merchant Navy during the Falklands war who was there in convoys and they most definitely did not consider it a walk in the park because of the Exocet missiles.

May be a dumb question, but what is a Merchant Navy?

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1 hour ago, Sbbruin said:

Watched the first 2 episodes last night.  I enjoy the historical part of it.

I want to see a spin-off about Dickie Mountbatten. 
 

Aircraft carrier captain and later Supreme Allied Commander in SE Asia who retook Burma and Singapore. Then Viceroy of India and supervised the partition, one of the bloodiest messes of the century. Plenty of sex stuff, too, his wife was carrying on with Nehru under Mountbattens’ nose, 

 

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3 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I want to see a spin-off about Dickie Mountbatten. 
 

Aircraft carrier captain and later Supreme Allied Commander in SE Asia who retook Burma and Singapore. Then Viceroy of India and supervised the partition, one of the bloodiest messes of the century. Plenty of sex stuff, too, his wife was carrying on with Nehru under Mountbattens’ nose, 

 

Seems I'd heard he was fond of the young boys. 

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Just finished up Season 4 last night. 


 

Spoiler

 

While I understand it is not a historical piece, it is definitely truth-based.  Fuck me, is there a more miserable cunt on the face of the earth than Charles?  The way he (and all of them, really) treated Diana was brutal.  And the way he was allowed to carry on with Camilla while Diana was supposed to sit at home and pine for him is awful.

The first couple seasons left me with a positive feeling about the royal family, but the last 2 has just shown them to be insecure narcissists who can't see past their own noses.  That whole family just needs to be tossed out on their own, left to fend for themselves.  It's no wonder Harry wanted the fuck out of there.  They are fucked up.  

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

I'm quite late to the party.  I don't have much gossipy interest in the royal family, but the historical aspects of the first couple of seasons were great.

I'm not really looking forward to Season 4 because I "lived" the Diana stuff and that era, so the history is mostly known and it seems gossipy.

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9 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm quite late to the party.  I don't have much gossipy interest in the royal family, but the historical aspects of the first couple of seasons were great.

I'm not really looking forward to Season 4 because I "lived" the Diana stuff and that era, so the history is mostly known and it seems gossipy.

Finished season 4 last night.  The earlier episodes were much better for the reasons you cite.

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The early ones were much better.  

My issue with The Crown is just that I prefer the historical context and geopolitical decisions that are going on to the "family drama."  It feels like in the Diana season that got tilted too far out of whack.  But obvious reasons, I know the target audience for this. 

I have a similar issue with most dystopian/sci-fi movies and literature (which I am addicted to).  I always want them to spend more time on the world-building than on the inevitable romantic/quest narrative.  "Enough of this buddy road-trip shit, show me more about how the barter economy works in this radiated wasteland. How did that bullets to pair of socks ration get established."

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  • 2 weeks later...

the GG nom thread made me search for this one...obviously very late to the party but am halfway thru S4 now...

gotdamn could this family fuck up some love affairs! Margaret got it right... when will they learn? i don't follow anything about the BRF except headlines, so the romantic in me thinks/hopes maybe Harry and Meghan have managed to break that tendency??

i suspect from comments Charles becomes a much less sympathetic character...but thus far this show has managed to make me feel sorry for him. his dad thought he was a 'sissy' from early childhood and treated him as such, his years at the school in Scotland looked torturous. he obviously was crazy in love with Camilla for years...the saddest part is i keep thinking Diana Spencer would be alive if the family had just let Charles love who he wanted.

tied in with the history of Edward's and Margaret's tragic loves...they just kept making messes of people's natural emotions. 

speaking of...Margaret and Tony's life seemed wiiild lol... would have enjoyed even more of that. i had no idea... amazing how they manage to keep so many things under wrap generation after generation. 

do Andrew and Edward make a reappearance at some point? not that i expect them to get into the grossness of Andrew lol...but with the exception of PC this show definitely adopted the soap opera style of child-rearing ha!

the actors are incredible, all seasons. 

 

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On 11/20/2020 at 1:56 PM, Bama Chick said:

That’s why I’m so glad Harry and Meghan noped the fuck out because, unfortunately, [b]William is very much his father’s son and saw H&M’s popularity as a threat and worked to undermine them with bullshit press leaks like Charles did with Diana.[/b]

is that really what happened?

 

as for the diana v charles discussion, perception is reality and amongst our english family and friends it's widely accepted charles was at fault.  

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  • 1 year later...
32 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

I guess it’s an appropriate time for a rewatch. 

I was just thinking that too.

Also production on Season 6 is very likely being "paused" for a bit, obviously.  Which is fine, but not too long, please.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have been behind on this one and had only seen S1 & S2 but have now gotten halfway through S3 but am trying to watch a little more frequently so I can catch the latest season when it drops soon. I did really like Claire Foy as the younger Elizabeth, but I must say everyone has done a fine job of it, from Olivia Colman to the lessor roles.

On 1/22/2021 at 4:44 AM, 956 Worldwide said:

My issue with The Crown is just that I prefer the historical context and geopolitical decisions that are going on to the "family drama."  It feels like in the Diana season that got tilted too far out of whack.  But obvious reasons, I know the target audience for this. 

I have a similar issue with most dystopian/sci-fi movies and literature (which I am addicted to).  I always want them to spend more time on the world-building than on the inevitable romantic/quest narrative.  "Enough of this buddy road-trip shit, show me more about how the barter economy works in this radiated wasteland. How did that bullets to pair of socks ration get established."

Part of me agrees with this (1st paragraph). My favorite episodes thus far have been when the story of world events has been interwoven with the behind the scenes reactions/actions/decisions and how it relates to what should be done/what was done/what can be done. Which leads me to your second paragraph. I don't like it when either romance or its opposite, fighting/violence are forced into a storyline when sometimes the ticky tacky little details are really quite fascinating. (recent case in point was the Colin Firth movie, Operation Mincemeat, wherein there was a wartime dalliance subplot that regardless of true or embellished was really quite stupid when the entire military operation story could stand up quite well on its own.) I love a good romance or a good battle, but (for me) that has to be part of the story naturally. Chemistry isn't necessarily something between actors while their acting--it works well when the characters themselves have a 'chemistry' that makes sense.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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