TV review
This Diana-obsessed series is the epitome of bad writing. Despite the brilliant cast, it’s a stark, soapy dive into the abyss – not least in the gruesome scenes with Ghost Diana
Welcome to the sixth season of “The Crown” – or “The Diana Show” as it is now called. While one might previously expect a 10-episode episode to chart at least a decade of royal shenanigans, highlight the political machinations of the time, and bring in an examination of the evolving details of palace protocol, the first three episodes of the latest installment deal closely with the last eight Weeks in Diana’s life and the fourth with The Crash and the funeral.
Unless you’re reading this while inside a Diana shrine of your own making, those few months are recreated in a truly shocking level of detail. From the start, “The Crown” walked a fine line between prestige drama — capable of conjuring a world of emotional struggle from a single scene or royal line — and soapy nonsense. It faltered in the third season, completely lost its balance in the next two seasons and is now falling into the abyss, despite the consistently brilliant performances of the entire cast – especially, of course, Elizabeth Debicki as the Queen of our hearts – who courageously tries to make the film to arrest It’s autumn. The kind of spin that Imelda Staunton, as queen, can bring to a line as simple as “Oh, that girl…” is a gift, but the crown is no longer worth it, or her.
Like a Hallmark movie, Diana faces death at every turn – just in case you don’t know the fate of the world’s most famous woman and have forgotten the frantic grief that gripped the country afterward. She is, as The Crown tells it, a virtual saint: watch her talk about landmines! See her playing normal middle class games with her beloved boys! Watch her fall in love with sweet Dodi Fayed! Look at her frown as she takes her therapist’s sound advice and vows to start a new life as soon as she gets home from Paris and away from those vicious paparazzi following her into that tunnel! And so the postmortem shocks of an entire country are portrayed as no more than they deserve. By the time she called William and Harry, things were already so complicated that this would be the last communication between them and their mother, as if there might as well be a news ticker at the bottom of the screen screaming “TUNNEL COMING!” in all caps. SHE WILL DIE SO BAD!”
“Like a Hallmark movie”…Elizabeth Debicki as Diana in The Crown. Photo: Daniel Escale/Netflix
And yet the worst is yet to come: after her death, Ghost Diana appears first to Prince Charles and then to the Queen as a kind of ministering angel who illuminates their path and the light and shows them how best to take care of their mood People to whose hearts she has always had a direct hotline. She thanks Charles for being so raw, broken and handsome when he saw her body in the hospital. “I’ll take that with me,” she adds. My notes are indecipherable at this point, which is a good thing since I suspect what they say wouldn’t be printable. As Ghost Diana takes the Queen’s hand and gently whispers: “You have always shown us what it means to be British. Maybe it’s time to learn something,” prompting her to give in to the headline’s challenge: “Show us you care, ma’am.” I’m having quite the out-of-body experience myself.
But “Ghost Diana” is entirely consistent with what is now just a crass piece of filmmaking, with a script that barely even claims to be art, let alone art. “She can’t keep the man of her dreams,” Diana tells her ex-husband as they reach relaxation. “But the girlfriend of her dreams.” “Look what you’ve achieved in the year since your divorce!” says Dodi at the beginning of The Last Night. “A global anti-landmine campaign! We raise millions for charity! And yet you’re still not happy.” “It’s the story of my life,” sighs before “Ghost Diana.” “Running around and losing sight of myself.” It is the very definition of typing rather than writing.
The emotion it evokes comes simply from the power of small moments – that at least have the sense of sinking into silence – such as seeing Charles tell the boys about their mother’s death, or seeing Harry call “Mama” Card writes on it will sit on the coffin. But even that is little more than voyeurism.
Aside from all its formal flaws, Late Period Crown is also incredibly hamstrung by being set so far in memory. Even if there were anything to grapple with, the memories and resulting questions that crowd the viewer’s mind at every stage would make it impossible. Was Charles really that perceptive about what her death so quickly would mean? Given everything we knew then and the mountains we’ve learned since, it seems unlikely. And we know that Prince Philip didn’t mutter an explanation to Harry for the crowd’s behavior during the funeral procession (“They’re not crying for them. They’re crying for you”) because we were actually there. We would have seen it. Suspension of disbelief can never be determined. Ghost Diana dances between ruins.
• The Crown is on Netflix.
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