Less than three weeks out from The Crown ‘s fifth season, Netflix hasdropped a trailer for the new episodes, whose cast is led by Imelda Stauntonas Queen Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana and Dominic West asPrince Charles.
The fifth season of The Crown is available Nov. 9 on Netflix. (Photo: KeithBernstein/Netflix)
The sweeping, Emmy award-winning drama, which imagines what went on behind-the-scenes at Buckingham Palace and elsewhere and recreates historic events,promises to delve into the final days of Diana and Charles’s unhappy marriage— and the fallout. “The royal family is in genuine crisis,” a voice says, as anewspaper leads with the headline, “Princess ‘will not go quietly.'” Thephrase uses Diana’s actual words from the BBC interview with Martin Bashirthat she sat for in 1995. We see the paparazzi’s obsession with Diana, too, asthey trail her, and she laments, “People will never understand how it’s reallybeen for me. I never stood a chance.”
At one point, Her Royal Highness tells her son, now King Charles III, “You, asfuture king, have a duty.”
The new clip arrived the day after actress Judi Dench, whom the late Queen> Elizabeth II honored several times, including with the title of Dame in> 1988, publicly called out the show for being “a hurtful account of history.”
In an open letter to The Times newspaper, Dench, who has played multipleroyals in her storied career and is reportedly friendly with Queen ConsortCamila, called for the show to add a disclaimer stating that it was a”fictionalized drama” at the beginning. She endorsed the words of formerBritish Prime Minister John Major, who has referred to the new season as a”barrel-load of nonsense.”
Sir John Major is not alone in his concerns that the latest series of TheCrown will present an inaccurate and hurtful account of history,” Denchwrote. “Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the newseries — that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, oronce suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might havedeserved a jail sentence — this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals anddamaging to the institution they represent.”
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Queen Elizabeth II honors Dame Judi Dench at Buckingham Palace on Oct. 26,2005. (Photo: Fiona Hanson/Pool/PA)
On Thursday’s episode of The View co-host Joy Behar argued that a disclaimeris unnecessary.
“This dame disagrees with Dame Judi Dench because they tell you at the topthat it is not a documentary, and if you have a brain, you can figure out thatthe writers have used history,” Behar said. “If it’s documented history, thenwe can believe it, but we’re not going to believe a conversation that’s goingon in the bedroom of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. Nobody was there butthe two of them, so you don’t believe that part. But the historical part, youbelieve.”
Netflix defended its show in a statement this week: ” The Crown has alwaysbeen presented as a drama based on historical events. Series Five is afictional dramatization, imagining what could have happened behind closeddoors during a significant decade for the royal family — one that has beenscrutinized and well-documented by journalists, biographers and historians.”
Debicki told variety on Tuesday that show creator Peter Morgan and othersinvolved in making the hit show are thoughtful about its depictions, whichwill include Diana’s tragic death in a sixth season.
“Peter and the crew of this job do their entire utmost to really handleeverything with such sensitivity and truth and complexity, as do actors,” shesaid. “The amount of research and care and conversations and dialogue thathappen over, from a viewer’s perspective, something probably that you wouldnever ever notice, is just immense. From that very first meeting [with] Peter,I knew that I’d entered into this space where this was taken seriously [in] adeeply caring way.”
The new season of ** The Crown premieres. Nov. 9 on Netflix.**