The Crown has Lost its Identity - The Crown Season 5 Netflix Review

#AndrewReviews #thecrown #netflix
So about a week ago Netflix released the Crown Season 5. It wasn't entirely bad, but something was definitely amiss. Watch this review of the Crown season 5 and find out what exactly was wrong. The fifth season stars Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth the II, Jonathan Pryce as Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, Dominic West as Charles, the Prince of Wales, Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana of Wales and Jonny Lee Miller as prime minister John Major.

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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:54 Summary
1:40 Bad Writing
9:13 Metaphors
11:21 Subtlety
12:41 Politics Where?
13:58 The Crown
15:59 Conclusion

[Sham]

I’m mad that they just BLEW past the ‘revenge dress’ moment. In the old crown treatment, we would have seen a whole montage of her wearing the dress, and some closeups of the dress and her face, a dramatic feel to it. Here it was 3 shots of her walking out of her car, and walking into the building. I was like bro what???

[eduardof]

I think that it´s interesting how for season 2 and 3 for example, that center around decades in which not many relevant things happened inside the Royal Family, the writers had to squeeze out drama, emotion and storytelling to tell actual powerful and appealing stories. While for this season, that takes place in the most discussed, chaotic and controversial decade for the family, and where the script seemed to be basically writing by itself... they decided to tone it down in sake of keeping some discretion. In previous seasons the writers were able to make a royal going to walk their dog feel as something powerful and symbolic... Here they somehow made a year where the royal residence was burned down and the family was split into three divorces... feel uninteresting and like not much was happening.

[clclcldn]

Season 5 failed to connect with my emotions as an audience. At least with the earlier seasons, I was able to empathize with the characters; I believed their struggles and sacrifices. But with this season, I felt nothing. Moumou and Sydney's episode was the highlight for me.

[victoriav]

My biggest disappoint in this season is actually Diana. This was THE season for her because it was around the time when she regains her strenght & voice and starts to flash out her identity and power - as shown by her actions and her fashion choices at this time. Instead we got her crying and sad and while that is a part of her story by no means it is all of it. I would have loved to see her smashing tea cups as apparently she did after her divorce was through 😂 I think it would have been so much intriguing seeing her gaining more & more power and confidence and clashing with the old system. Dont get me wrong - Elizabeth was very very good but I expected so much more....

[Astraea]

There was a 4 year age difference between Elizabeth & Margaret, so why does Margaret look (appropriately) like she's in her 60s, while QE2 looks like she's in her 80s already?

[butterbear]

Agreed. I also feel the cinematography was meh this season. Nothing will compare to the young princes Margret era!! Her episodes were just gorgeous. I felt the characters seemed so... different from the previous seasons. It was jarring. Not because they changed actors but because the dialogue made it so. I'm like where did y'all's personalities go wtf I'm so so disappointed with this season but I will stick with the series lol!!

[miscellaneous]

By the end of the season I couldn't wash away that feeling of "Did I just watch a 10 episode PR stunt to make Charles look good or did I watch The Crown?" 🤨

[ZoraTheberge]

What I think has really changed is the Queen’s response to divorce. Both Claire Foy and Olivia Colman were given dramatic monologues showing how stern she was in her beliefs. Imelda Staunton spent the whole season making grumpy faces and letting people divorce and remarry as they wish. We’d call that inconsistent writing if this wasn’t based on truth. But a whole episode could have revolved around what seems to be an evolution.

[pedrosalles]

I dislike the royals, but the crown has the TIGHTEST grip on my attention. Unfortunately, this season was a let down, Lizzie definitely lost her shine a lil bit, and having Charles as the center of the narrative was a struggle. I did like the Fayeds and Diana. Those were the highlights.

[jaakkomakinen]

I was so disappointed, too. The first two episodes felt like they were introducing the characters of a show and at this point, darlings, I've spent hundreds of hours watching and rewatching the first 4 seasons, I've got this, get to the point. Agree with you on Elisabeth being almost a sidekick and too much focus on Charles & Diana. Though I must say Elizabeth Debicki got Dianas voice and manners perfectly! Also I think Olivia Colman as the Queen was SO great it's very, very difficult to live up to that..

[giosanpedro]

Season 5 had its moments, but unfortunately, I have to agree. If it's not the worst, it surely is the most boring season so far. Thanks for this video; it articulated my feelings about S5.

[pihlatolppanen]

I have a couple of theories on why the season lost it’s spark a bit:

-the royal family and all media loyal to them have their eyes tightly drawn at the series, and maybe peter morgan knew he had to downplay the drama and make charles look as good as possible as he would become king in the next few years (which turned out to be very true and recent)
-I felt like some episodes were missing some parts or scenes felt stripped, and it’s very possible that the queen’s death and charles’s claim to the throne meant that some scenes had to be edited or cut entirely because they would spark unbecoming controversy for the new king or the late queen
-I also noticed how there’s no new main soundtrack and a lack of major beautiful scenery, like there was a smaller budget or something so maybe they are saving money so they can fully expand the drama in the next season (probably on diana’s death scene at least)

[emr]

I was very disappointed in this watered down season of the show that I fell in love with. It was almost painful getting through each episode.

[Boblw]

West and Pryce were miscast. Totally didn’t buy them as Charles and Phillip. Staunton was one dimensional and emotionless.

[studiostyx]

I've been looking for a review vid like this, thanks so much. This season felt like Peter Morgan went back and did a last minute panic rewrite; there was no pacing or rhythm, some plotlines lasted all of 2 or 3 scenes while others dragged on and on. At least in S4 peripheral characters like Margaret had an entire episode dedicated to them, and hers was especially powerful. But by S5 she was just wedged in there. I also hated the way the writers handled Diana's relationship with Dr. Hasnat. They truly loved each other, Diana met his family and there was talk of marriage but the media and their dramatically different lives made it impossible. He never ghosted her, they broke up. Dodi was Diana's summer rebound from that relationship.

[kanamenoname]

My biggest issues were:
1. Weak representation and storyline for the queen, like you build her up to this great character for the past 4 seasons only to give the audience 1 or 2 momentous scenes for her this season

2. Charles and Camilla being portrayed as the real victims and diana being a childish vindictive woman. Like yeah diana had her issues with manipulation but like Charlie and Camilla are no victims here or star crossed lovers they literally married other people and made decisions to benefit themselves for the time being and then committed adultery when they thought they were secure.

3. Zero emphasis on Fergie and Andrew which plays a huge role in the queen's life and how the royals are seen today.

4. Anne was a huge plus point in early seasons but her being portrayed as someone who cheers for her brother's adultery and getting 1 big scene didn't sit right with me. For 1 Anne was the best character in season 4 because she seemed to be the only one in the loop but also someone who seemed to know right from wrong but here she is telling her brother it's cute that he's cheating with his ex girlfriend on his current wife and the mother to her nephews. Ew.


I feel like the creator of the crown made last minute changes to appeal to the institution now because of the new leadership, ans that hurt the storyline. I literally went back in Netflix for season 5 after canceling my subscription 5 months ago, but I won't be doing that for season 6 anymore.

[reecegraham]

Funny how the most compelling storyline to me was of Mohamed Al Fayes aka Mou Mou. Like how did some side character who didn’t even get that much screen time became my favourite in a show that’s called The Crown that she supposed to be about the royals smh

[katie]

I agree with you. Season 5 is so different and worse in comparison with the earlier seasons. It's like a soap opera now and no episode caught my attention good enough.

[bryand]

charles' insecurities and jealousy suddenly vanished although his mother still doesn't let him have a say, diana's fire and life changing charity work were doused with water, and anne's snark turned to essentially "i think it's cute you said you wanted to be camilla's tampon charles. both of you are just middle aged people in love." they wanted to appease charles so much that season 5 became a snooze feast. the damn brittanica had more character than the characters this season! i feel like we were promised the oncoming storm from the season 4 finale but the "war of the wales" felt more like a schoolyard fight, not a war. who knew they'd make annus horibilis so boring?? i ended up not sympathizing with the queen cause i didn't feel the gravity of the challenging situations she went through. what a let down!

[MysticDojo]

A big issue I had was this season revisited issues that alrdy had enough focus, coverage and closure, so it was like beating up a dead horse. Like Margaret throwing a tantrum about her lost love in youth felt forced during the ep of the fire or the marital struggles Elizabeth and Phillip had in their youth mostly seemed resolved but is brought up again in the Russian ep just for additional tension. So for it's 5th season I was anticipating new issues, new challenges, new content but we got lower quality story telling of older topics re-used