This episode throws one off at first. A man, walking his dog, stands on the sidewalk as a series of emergency vehicles and motorcycles steam down the street. There has been a crash in a tunnel. We know, of course, what this is all about, but we had read there would be the whole post divorce story of Diana and Prince Charles. Of course, it's a tease, and we are taken back to begin the events that led up to that fateful day. There are two events going on. Diana has taken the boys on a vacation to the Fayad home, where Dodi's father has invited them. We get a real look at the Paparazzi as they try to enjoy themselves. Also, Dodi, who is engaged, gets caught in the middle when his father expresses disdain for his fiancee. The other event is Camilla Parker Bowles fiftieth birthday party, which Charles is throwing for her. He asks the Queen to attend and she first ignores his request and then turns him down flat because of a commitment to visit an auto plant. She is so disapproving and yet, when she meets with Tony Blair who asks her to use Diana as a sort of British representative, she is, indeed, persona non grata. She is a cruel woman who stands on absolute tradition and punishes both Charles and Diana. Anyway, I enjoyed the acting and the great scenery portrayed here. Also, Diana's loving attachment to her children.
8 Reviews
How can Camilla be Queen now?!
phd_travel16 December 2023
The subject of this episode is fascinating opening with the car crash and going
back to how Dodi met Diana. Didn't know His father pushed them together.
The cast is hit and miss. Elizabeth Debicki is uncannily like Diana and captures her essence. Dominic West is too assertive and commanding for Charles. Should be weaker and looking. And speak with that mumbly way Charles does. Olivia Williams looks like Camilla. Imelda Staunton is more like the help than the Queen. Not regal enough.
The production is lavish as expected with stately manor houses and breathtaking seaside villas and yachts.
Watching the most notorious adultery of the century makes me so upset. The angle of this episode does show the unfairness Diana endured. If he can cheat and live with Camilla why can't Diana see who she wants. The displeasure at her dating Dodi is clear. In the end this is the tragic story of the century with an unhappy ending. The good die young. How can Camilla be Queen today? Why didn't Charles just abdicate? Somehow all the problems with Harry and Meghan today are rooted in this unpunished transgression.
The cast is hit and miss. Elizabeth Debicki is uncannily like Diana and captures her essence. Dominic West is too assertive and commanding for Charles. Should be weaker and looking. And speak with that mumbly way Charles does. Olivia Williams looks like Camilla. Imelda Staunton is more like the help than the Queen. Not regal enough.
The production is lavish as expected with stately manor houses and breathtaking seaside villas and yachts.
Watching the most notorious adultery of the century makes me so upset. The angle of this episode does show the unfairness Diana endured. If he can cheat and live with Camilla why can't Diana see who she wants. The displeasure at her dating Dodi is clear. In the end this is the tragic story of the century with an unhappy ending. The good die young. How can Camilla be Queen today? Why didn't Charles just abdicate? Somehow all the problems with Harry and Meghan today are rooted in this unpunished transgression.
It's not Coronation Street
GoldenGooner0416 November 2023
Lady Di, as I call her was the female 007 before there was one.
Every bloke wanted to be Bond and every woman wanted to be with him. With Lady Di every woman wanted to be her, the clothes, makeup, hair the wedding ring, and every bloke wanted to be with her This series is not meant to be real life, but the problem with that is, for us in the UK it's one of the Biggest ever Events in our history and this series is really not good news for the King as people start to forget, and as for the Queen well I will Never call her "My Queen" this series shows what a B@@ch she was and how the King cheated on Di before Di then went and cheated on her very unfaithful husband.
People say "we remember where we were when Elvis died" I don't but I do remember where I was when Di died. Coming home from the nightclub around 1am and lights were on and Mum & Dad were watching the TV we stayed up to 4am I think. I phoned the girl I had been with and she and her parents were also watching the News.
Lady Di was "worshipped" by us the people of the UK, this series is a Soap Opera and we need to remember that I mean a scene with her "Ghost" WTF I have just read Claudio Christian's book, she was also having am affair with Dodi she had known him for 20 years on and off but don't get a mention in this, you learn some interesting bits from her book.
The acting is superb in this of course, the actors act and behave like the real people, the sets are amazing it's a Brilliant show, but I say again " it's meant to be a Soap Opera"
Every bloke wanted to be Bond and every woman wanted to be with him. With Lady Di every woman wanted to be her, the clothes, makeup, hair the wedding ring, and every bloke wanted to be with her This series is not meant to be real life, but the problem with that is, for us in the UK it's one of the Biggest ever Events in our history and this series is really not good news for the King as people start to forget, and as for the Queen well I will Never call her "My Queen" this series shows what a B@@ch she was and how the King cheated on Di before Di then went and cheated on her very unfaithful husband.
People say "we remember where we were when Elvis died" I don't but I do remember where I was when Di died. Coming home from the nightclub around 1am and lights were on and Mum & Dad were watching the TV we stayed up to 4am I think. I phoned the girl I had been with and she and her parents were also watching the News.
Lady Di was "worshipped" by us the people of the UK, this series is a Soap Opera and we need to remember that I mean a scene with her "Ghost" WTF I have just read Claudio Christian's book, she was also having am affair with Dodi she had known him for 20 years on and off but don't get a mention in this, you learn some interesting bits from her book.
The acting is superb in this of course, the actors act and behave like the real people, the sets are amazing it's a Brilliant show, but I say again " it's meant to be a Soap Opera"
Elizabeth Dubeki is extraordinary
perdyhorse16 November 2023
Season six is all about Diana and Dodi and their tragic deaths. The rest of the cast are superb but extras in this series until episode 4. I think it's been made sympathetically to all involved in the lives of the royal family. Only the family and close advisors ( to some extent ) knows the truth so accept this as a drama with the caveat that it's based on fact and dramatised. I applaud Elizabeth Dubeki for every look and glance, her tone of voice and that little cynical laugh that we occasionally saw when Diana was being interviewed. This series will hardly bring comfort to the boys or the King but it's a reminder of the fact that we are all human beings with all the errors and weaknesses humans have regardless of riches.
I have not bout a paper since the day she died and will continue to boycott the tabloids. Great series. Great acting all round.
I have not bout a paper since the day she died and will continue to boycott the tabloids. Great series. Great acting all round.
Slow motion to the end of her story
dierregi2 December 2023
The show about the Crown switches lanes and slows down to first gear almost to a halt, shifting the focus to the (ex) Princess, so much so that the first four episodes of this series should be a separate mini-series.
This series, which I would title "The Most Beloved", covers Diana's last few weeks and we're told once again what was already covered a billion times before, with little twists here and there. Actually, the twists are the most interesting part of this story, which starts in July 1997 with Diana being upset about Charles throwing a party for Camilla's birthday and accepting her friend Mou Mou's invitation to relax on his yacht near Saint Tropez. Not exactly the place where to avoid unwanted attention...
Debicki is good at reproducing Diana's trademark furtive, sideways glance and her impersonation is the the best part of the show. However, paraphrasing the queen and considering the morbid attention surrounding (then and now) the royal family, "one would feel sorry for them" if one cared about the monarchy.
This series, which I would title "The Most Beloved", covers Diana's last few weeks and we're told once again what was already covered a billion times before, with little twists here and there. Actually, the twists are the most interesting part of this story, which starts in July 1997 with Diana being upset about Charles throwing a party for Camilla's birthday and accepting her friend Mou Mou's invitation to relax on his yacht near Saint Tropez. Not exactly the place where to avoid unwanted attention...
Debicki is good at reproducing Diana's trademark furtive, sideways glance and her impersonation is the the best part of the show. However, paraphrasing the queen and considering the morbid attention surrounding (then and now) the royal family, "one would feel sorry for them" if one cared about the monarchy.
A very poor start to a very poor season
iamangelcortes30 December 2023
This episode is so boring. Where is the politics? Royal family dramas? There's nothing, just Elizabeth Debicki's boring Diana having fun. Absolutely nothing happens, beach scenes, on yachts, nothing interesting. The only thing they do in this episode is replicate the famous photos of Diana on the Fayed Yacht, nothing more, that's very boring, there are no real conflicts. The only interesting scene in this episode is the initial one where Diana's car crashes, the rest is ALL BORING. Peter Morgan, the screenwriter, has nothing new to tell, he goes around and writes empty dialogue, trying to fill the 40 pages of the script so that the episode lasts 50 miserable and boring minutes.
Her face was already on the tea towels.
sallykeller-511424 January 2024
Love the feel of the big budget biopic. If the amazing previous seasons are to be lived up to then season 6 will have to establish a quick relationship with the new characters and the faithful TC audience.
I do think they went easy on Charles, with some gentle and benign swipes at Camilla. I envied the ultra-realism of this production but this episode does not reflect the dislike the people still had for Camilla at the time. The upper middle class bogan persona did come out well as we say in colonies. The children getting dragged along was a great sidebar for the entire episode and the attention to detail like the video game that the young prince enjoyed was superb.
There's a great philosophical backdrop about duty, marriage, love, and sacrifice hidden in this script. The Queen stays regal and resolute, the prince is impulsive and the bureaucracy continues to try and ensure that the Crown must win at all costs.
Playing George Michael in the first act kind of brought us out of the storytelling. Anglophiles know what's about to happen and like the predictability, this didn't seem like a good fit within the original score we have gotten used to.
Is it just me or is everyone remarkably better looking on the screen, especially Charles! Dom West has a particularly chiseled face and built upper body for the King's likeness. They could have done better preparing his physicality or even the casting altogether here.
The 50th birthday as a device for the Queen's slow transition was a good idea but Charles's stoic acceptance of the Queen's decision not to attend is not how things really played out, I'm sure.
Some may like the nonlinear intro but this was a little unusual, I instantly thought things were moving too fast and going to end where they started in the next 60mins and was sad.
There is a little bit of politics but not the deep PR analysis of other episodes that we expect from Buckingham Palace.
The episodes and the pending locations lend themselves to gorgeous photography and production values. I'm looking forward to better episodes as things warm up!
I do think they went easy on Charles, with some gentle and benign swipes at Camilla. I envied the ultra-realism of this production but this episode does not reflect the dislike the people still had for Camilla at the time. The upper middle class bogan persona did come out well as we say in colonies. The children getting dragged along was a great sidebar for the entire episode and the attention to detail like the video game that the young prince enjoyed was superb.
There's a great philosophical backdrop about duty, marriage, love, and sacrifice hidden in this script. The Queen stays regal and resolute, the prince is impulsive and the bureaucracy continues to try and ensure that the Crown must win at all costs.
Playing George Michael in the first act kind of brought us out of the storytelling. Anglophiles know what's about to happen and like the predictability, this didn't seem like a good fit within the original score we have gotten used to.
Is it just me or is everyone remarkably better looking on the screen, especially Charles! Dom West has a particularly chiseled face and built upper body for the King's likeness. They could have done better preparing his physicality or even the casting altogether here.
The 50th birthday as a device for the Queen's slow transition was a good idea but Charles's stoic acceptance of the Queen's decision not to attend is not how things really played out, I'm sure.
Some may like the nonlinear intro but this was a little unusual, I instantly thought things were moving too fast and going to end where they started in the next 60mins and was sad.
There is a little bit of politics but not the deep PR analysis of other episodes that we expect from Buckingham Palace.
The episodes and the pending locations lend themselves to gorgeous photography and production values. I'm looking forward to better episodes as things warm up!
Hail Diana, Gratia Plena
jgreco717 November 2023
Warning: Spoilers
The sixth and final season of Netflix's jewel in the crown, "The Crown" resurrects those now-ingrained events leading up to August 31, 1997, that to many, it's not so far-fetched to say, commemorate the passion and death of Princess Diana in a Paris tunnel, a devotion, it seems, as deep-rooted to Royalists as the Stations of the Cross to the devout.
Peter Morgan, the Royal Family's unofficial, perhaps also unwanted, memoirist, has captured, in snapshot detail, all the canonical moments that every media outlet at the time recorded for posterity, which have now become material for his crowning achievement. Those moments, the flashbulb memory of anyone alive at the end of the 20th Century, flicker on screens like another family's home movies. Gratefully, Morgan spares us the tedium and presents only the highlights: vacations on the Fayed yacht, paling around with the boys, slumming with Dodi, the land mines, the clamoring paparazzi, the Paris Ritz, the skinny white slacks, the black Mercedes, the Pont de l'Alma tunnel. Faithful to the gospel according to Tina Brown, Morgan's narrative takes the view that Diana wasn't betrothed to Fayed, but merely finding herself, now that she was--as Queen mum explains to the always ingratiating Tony Blair--"officially out" of the HRH club.
The usual cast of characters reappear, and the actors who portrayed them: as the principle players, Elizabeth Debicki and Dominic West effect passable impersonations, despite being physically more appealing as a pair than the actual mismatched Diana and Charles. As Chairman of the Board, Imelda Staunton, of sound mind and sturdy shoes, dons again the vintage hair and handbag, in a role that has become, over seven years, as longevous as the Queen herself. I dare say, portraying a woman who lacks any discernible nuance has become so routine for British actresses of a certain age that one Queen is as good as any other (although Mirren's won the prize). And Jonathan Pryce, like all those before him, handily essays a bored and blasé Philip, to-the-manor-born, a paragon of a hanger-on, and the go-to man on matters of protocol, who reminds all that divorced Diana, no longer a Royal Highness, doesn't rate a ceremonial funeral.
To that end, skirting morbid curiosity, Morgan appropriately dramatizes, in a kind of pantomime, without an underscore, and mostly in silence, the fallout of Diana's misfortune, as the British in general, and specifically in dramas, are disinclined to showy theatrics, yet he does allow concessions in this regard, to a degree, and succeeds in dramatizing brief instances of grieving. Where he leaps in dramatic license, however, is allotting individual characters--Charles, Elizabeth II, and Mohamed Al Fayed--each his and her own private, soul-searching moment with the dead. Although this kind of contrivance works as a narrative device, it also assumes mental states that are more wishful than factual, and even teeters on the mawkish, as when the spectre of Diana comforts a regretful Charles and thanks him for having wept over her dead body: "I always loved you," she tells him, "deeply...painfully."
Over seven years and six seasons, Morgan has certainly been critical of the Monarchy and the Monarch; however, he has allowed the Queen a touch of humanity, as other biographies have done, once she's recovered from a momentary lapse of not being amused. They, like Morgan, choose to interpret her, and her Royal Appendage, as human beings showing tasteful displays of remorse, not a necessary component of their business model, despite having dismissed such unseemly displays as "mass hysteria." In fact, this gesture of empathy with commoners has become, historically, the Monarchy's defining moment, and its entree into the 21st Century, which, one might argue, is owed in great part to Diana's sacrifice. As Charles admits to himself, once she's dead, "You were the most beloved of all." Anyway, that's how Morgan likes to imagine it.
Peter Morgan, the Royal Family's unofficial, perhaps also unwanted, memoirist, has captured, in snapshot detail, all the canonical moments that every media outlet at the time recorded for posterity, which have now become material for his crowning achievement. Those moments, the flashbulb memory of anyone alive at the end of the 20th Century, flicker on screens like another family's home movies. Gratefully, Morgan spares us the tedium and presents only the highlights: vacations on the Fayed yacht, paling around with the boys, slumming with Dodi, the land mines, the clamoring paparazzi, the Paris Ritz, the skinny white slacks, the black Mercedes, the Pont de l'Alma tunnel. Faithful to the gospel according to Tina Brown, Morgan's narrative takes the view that Diana wasn't betrothed to Fayed, but merely finding herself, now that she was--as Queen mum explains to the always ingratiating Tony Blair--"officially out" of the HRH club.
The usual cast of characters reappear, and the actors who portrayed them: as the principle players, Elizabeth Debicki and Dominic West effect passable impersonations, despite being physically more appealing as a pair than the actual mismatched Diana and Charles. As Chairman of the Board, Imelda Staunton, of sound mind and sturdy shoes, dons again the vintage hair and handbag, in a role that has become, over seven years, as longevous as the Queen herself. I dare say, portraying a woman who lacks any discernible nuance has become so routine for British actresses of a certain age that one Queen is as good as any other (although Mirren's won the prize). And Jonathan Pryce, like all those before him, handily essays a bored and blasé Philip, to-the-manor-born, a paragon of a hanger-on, and the go-to man on matters of protocol, who reminds all that divorced Diana, no longer a Royal Highness, doesn't rate a ceremonial funeral.
To that end, skirting morbid curiosity, Morgan appropriately dramatizes, in a kind of pantomime, without an underscore, and mostly in silence, the fallout of Diana's misfortune, as the British in general, and specifically in dramas, are disinclined to showy theatrics, yet he does allow concessions in this regard, to a degree, and succeeds in dramatizing brief instances of grieving. Where he leaps in dramatic license, however, is allotting individual characters--Charles, Elizabeth II, and Mohamed Al Fayed--each his and her own private, soul-searching moment with the dead. Although this kind of contrivance works as a narrative device, it also assumes mental states that are more wishful than factual, and even teeters on the mawkish, as when the spectre of Diana comforts a regretful Charles and thanks him for having wept over her dead body: "I always loved you," she tells him, "deeply...painfully."
Over seven years and six seasons, Morgan has certainly been critical of the Monarchy and the Monarch; however, he has allowed the Queen a touch of humanity, as other biographies have done, once she's recovered from a momentary lapse of not being amused. They, like Morgan, choose to interpret her, and her Royal Appendage, as human beings showing tasteful displays of remorse, not a necessary component of their business model, despite having dismissed such unseemly displays as "mass hysteria." In fact, this gesture of empathy with commoners has become, historically, the Monarchy's defining moment, and its entree into the 21st Century, which, one might argue, is owed in great part to Diana's sacrifice. As Charles admits to himself, once she's dead, "You were the most beloved of all." Anyway, that's how Morgan likes to imagine it.
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