The Crown: season 5

[KillingMeDeftly]

Anyone seen this yet? I'm not quite as convinced by the casting for this season as I was for previous ones but will withhold judgement until I've watched the whole series.

Elizabeth Debicki looks the part as Diana, although I thought Emma Corrin captured her voice better. Dominic West is very flattering casting for Charles but Olivia Williams as Camilla is uncanny. I never thought she looked anything like her but they've made her a dead ringer! Same goes for Jonny Lee Miller as John Major.

It looks like this season will cover events up to and including Diana's Panorama interview.

Quite right @SenecaFallsRedux

Jonathan Pryce and Dominic West aren't even trying to get the voices right, which is really annoying me. The Queen Mother actress looks nothing like her at all. The scene where Charles asked John Major to put pressure on the Queen to abdicate was completely and utterly stupid, no wonder JM is livid about it.

And they really overegged the decrepit 'Britannia' metaphor.

We get it Peter. We really do.

Phillip was grander than the Queen!

Quite right. I was thinking about that during the "mongrel" scene. It's a matter of historical record that the QM was not all that fond of Philip, but when they were making fun of him and the Queen was sort of joining in, I thought to myself, he was more royal than all three of you. Of course, in real life, I think the Queen would have come to his defense. She essentially defied both her parents in choosing him.

I agree with other posters that the Romanov story line was hard to watch. When I saw the title of that episode, I thought "what is going on here? I'm watching this for a bit of escapism and to see what they do with the clothes." I had to fast forward through parts of it. I have seen other depictions, and I have read several accounts of it in histories and biographies, but this time, I just did not want to go there.

Did the Queen really snub Al Fayed at the races?

Very strange...

Come back to say the actor portraying Charles Spencer had done his homework. Impressed

Phillip was grander than the Queen!

Wasn't his cousin Princess Marina, who was equally grand, rumoured to have referred to Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret as "those common little Scottish girls"?

Diana comes off as really wet, self-pitying and vacuous.

Everybody else is unconvincing.

I agree, they may have glossed over Diana's affairs, but she doesn't come out of this looking great.

She supposedly said something along those lines, but I think it was about her sisters-in-law, Elizabeth then Duchess of York, and Alice Duchess of Gloucester, both of whom were daughters of Scottish peers.

Sorry for coming and going folks, a bit of elderly parent hospital drama today!
@Jacopo it was nothing of note, I was just agreeing with you about that Olivia Colman would have been better as HMQ and Imelda Staunton as QM.
I'd better not say too much, but it was just an innocuous comment on a friendship covered in this series of The Crown between a royal and a non royal.
We've switched over to I'm a Celeb now(!), but had got as far as Charles&Diana separating and the tape recordings.
Loving the fashion memories.

Loved the Diana Mohammed Al- Fayed scene though I am sure it never happened.

Why is Prince Phillip wearing an enormous badly fitting suit? I met him a couple of times in 1986/87 and he was an upright, spritely, slim middle aged man, not a granddad figure with sloping shoulders & an awful suit.

Yes, Philip was always impeccably dressed and had a military bearing well into old age. This 'Philip' does not.

I agree with the poster above who said the casting director seems to have just thought 'OK. Jonathan Pryce. He's old. He'll do.' Even though he doesn't have the 'essence' of the character at all, and we all know it.

Agree re Phillip the other earlier ones were so much better

Watching now and Dominic West doing a weird thing with his jaw, bugging me. Not sure it’s a feature of Charles

@Eaumyword thank you for the info! The non-royal was actually a good piece of casting if it’s who I think it is. Looked and sounded the part imo.

My god all the yakking on about the Royal Yacht is really dull. Heavy handed symbolism.

Just watched episode 6 which was traumatic, I knew the Russian royals were murdered but bloody hell 😳

I think everyone moaning about the casting in terms of the actors not looking quite right are missing the point that they are actors! It's a bit much to expect the casting directors to find royal family doubles imo. I personally think the casting is okay, Princess Diana is very convincing.

That said I agree the queen mum is particularly random, I thought she was a housekeeper or something for ages 😂

I thought it was Mohammad Fayeds rags to riches story was pretty amazing.

Camilla comes out looking very well, doesn't she? Sensible and funny. Who would rather not hang out with her than weepy Di? ( I know it's made up ,but just saying).

I thought so too - absolutely uncanny!

I was fascinated by the Mohammed al Fayed episode and lovely Sidney and agree that Camilla is quite good casting - she is portrayed as a sensible, down to earth, fun person.

When I realised the Romanov death scene was coming up I steeled myself to watch it, but could not. I shut my eyes. Eventually I had to cover my ears. It was too much.

I would like to know if the British Monarchy actually did refuse to help them. Surely, bringing the family back to Britain could not have been the only answer? It’s a big world out there, they could have arranged to get them to America, South America?

But it did seem to explain Edward VIII not having much respect for his family. (I think he was the one at he table when his father handed the lettter to him to hand to his mother?) Although he turned out to be an arsehole too, with his and Wallis’ connections to the Nazis.

Camilla is great but for the love of me I can not understand why tv Camilla would spend a minute with tv Charles. He doesn't need a partner, but mummy who will give him a pat on the back every few minutes and tell him "now, now, everything is all right, you're so clever, my darling little boy".

Mind you, I'm refering to tv characters, I do not know anything about them in the real life.

I actually hope the real Al Fayad watched the show (I bet he did) as he came across extremely sympathetically and I do think at the time in real life there was huge snobbery about Harrods being sold to an “Arab”.
And I can believe that Diana and he would have got on very well cos she did love her designer things!
I must say I’ve never really understood what Camilla sees in Charles as she seems like a jolly, no nonsense fun woman and he seems like an introspective whiner.