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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
143
Mixed:
34
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews
Nov 18, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Probably the only series in television to have fully mastered the balancing act between slow meditative storytelling and emotional drag. This only becomes more the case as the story enters the middle years of Queen Elizabeth, played with steely, boundless soul by Oscar winner Olivia Colman. ... And “The Crown” does so with true dignity, inviting us to sit for a while, attentively and with appreciation, within its assured spell of calm.
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Nov 18, 2019
Season 3 Review:
A character who, in Season 3, is becoming more and more unknowable. ... Colman, an indubitably brilliant actor, brings more of herself to the part than Foy did, but she’s able to capture the markedly divergent aspects of a woman who’s a wife, a mother, and a monarch in a long line of failures.
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Nov 16, 2019
Season 3 Review:
The Crown ushers in a new cast, but the Netflix historical drama's compelling and regal formula -- exploring the obligations and indignities associated with the seemingly sun-drenched life of the British Royal Family -- remains the same, and indeed has only deepened as the principals advance into middle age.
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Nov 15, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Colman intuits that Elizabeth, at the height of her powers and in the middle of a calm stretch, is content. The performance is both believable and emotionally astute: Elizabeth would be settled and comfortable. But this, along with the equilibrium in her marriage, snuffs out some of the little tension there used to be. ... That the show remains appealing through this relatively slow going is largely thanks to the more high-strung characters surrounding Elizabeth.
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RogerEbert.comNov 15, 2019
Season 3 Review:
More uneven than its two predecessors, but also more daring and surprising. When it works, it’s incredibly compelling, once again solidifying itself as one of the best shows of the year; when it doesn’t, it’s merely one of the best acting ensembles anywhere, moving about in a series that’s as richly designed, expertly directed, and satisfyingly paced as anything else in television.
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Nov 15, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Elizabeth is no longer the most interesting figure in her own story. Colman is conspicuously absent through much of the season, which focuses more heavily on Phillip, Margaret and Charles, and her role in her family members' stories is nominal at best. Despite the marquee position of Colman in the opening credits, "Crown" doesn't feel like her show. ... The series remains fully capable of making the family a little less mysterious and a little more entertaining.
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Nov 14, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Colman is exceptional in everything she does, so she’s not afraid to make the Elizabeth of Season 3 look, at times, distressingly irrelevant and frustratingly complacent. ... Like Colman, the new cast members assume their roles with elegance and ease. ... The return of “The Crown,” with its irresistible blend of heightened history and peek-behind-the-brocade-curtain drama, is a gloriously welcome gift, arriving just in time for the holidays.
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Nov 14, 2019
Season 3 Review:
It has a smashingly good new cast (whose performances are equal if not better than their predecessors) and a brisk, almost urgent sense of galloping through the long life story of Queen Elizabeth II. ... Colman is convincing in the role from the moment we see her, conveying the queen’s deepest worries with just the slightest twitch. ... It blends fact, fantasy and humanity in a way that allows us to wonder if the crown truly does rest where it ought.
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Nov 13, 2019
Season 3 Review:
The series itself struggled between finding its own balance — with some episodes striking resonant chords ("Bubbikins," "Margretology") and others falling painfully flat ("Coup," "Moondust"). But as Elizabeth herself states during one of her meetings with PM Wilson, sometimes it's better to simply look the other way, to wait for this to pass. Season 3 is a time of transition — for the royal family, for the United Kingdom, for The Crown itself.
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Nov 13, 2019
Season 3 Review:
I have seen the third season of “The Crown,” which will be available on Netflix on Sunday, and it is dazzling and excellent. It’s extraordinary historical TV. ... Often, streaming series feel more like season-long blurs than a series of distinct episodes. That is not the case with “The Crown,” as it tells its story as precisely and lavishly as anything on TV these days.
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Nov 12, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Stiff of spine and thin of voice, this Elizabeth (played by Oscar winner Olivia Colman) may make you long for the incandescent Claire Foy ... The history lessons check some necessary boxes — Churchill (John Lithgow) goes to his eternal reward in Episode 1 — but also resurrect delicious bits that may have been forgotten. ... With an ever-present cigarette holder and air of hangover chic, Margaret is a free spirit trapped by the rules of the palace, and her contrast with Elizabeth is something Morgan returns to again and again with striking results.
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Nov 12, 2019
Season 3 Review:
At this phase of the story, Elizabeth is more uptight and controlling than ever, especially now that some of her children are old enough to cause her problems in the way only her sister once did. But the job and the many ugly things she has to do in it weigh on her more than ever, which Colman portrays beautifully. It’s not a thrilling time for Elizabeth, or The Crown, but it’s a complicated transition handled quite deftly.
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Nov 6, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Season three of The Crown lacks the urgency that previously made the Netflix series so engaging. This is partly due to the more subdued relationships between the older members of the House of Windsor, now settled into their various roles as sovereign, husband, sister, and wife.
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Nov 5, 2019
Season 3 Review:
At its heart, The Crown is a catalogue of the myriad ways Elizabeth must deny her true self out of duty to her country. It’s a theme that’s at once tragic and predictable, which makes the emergence of Prince Charles and Princess Anne as more prominent players all the more welcome.
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The Daily BeastNov 4, 2019
Season 3 Review:
The parallels struck in each episode between what’s going on in the world and the royals’ own personal struggles can tend toward too clever, too forced, or too coincidental at times. [But] Concealing where Queen Elizabeth—the history and the person—ends, and Queen Elizabeth—the TV character—begins is where The Crown showcases its most delicate sleight of hand. And it’s in that, too, that the series continues to be the most compelling, teetering between tabloid snuff and reverent curiosity with a confident handle of the creative danger that entails.
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Nov 4, 2019
Season 3 Review:
In terms of performances, The Crown 2.0, which arrives on Nov. 17, marks an improvement over its fine predecessor. The versatile Colman makes a more complex Elizabeth, one who isn’t brittle so much as ill at ease in her own exalted skin. ... The same aura of mystery that Elizabeth defends in the documentary episode also limits the mostly reverent Morgan’s insight into his characters, to the extent that their conflicts get repetitive.
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Nov 4, 2019
Season 3 Review:
This dual attempt to humanize the royals without going too far in any direction presents an uneasy balancing act that “The Crown” doesn’t always nail. The moments when it does can be transcendent, which is almost always thanks to the actors, not to mention the directors guiding them. Without these steady, nuanced performances, “The Crown” could easily droop under the weight of its own ambition and others’ expectations. With them, “The Crown” becomes as compelling a portrait of how power warps individuals, and the world along with them, as exists on TV.
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ColliderNov 4, 2019
Season 3 Review:
The Crown distinguishes itself from other prestige television of the age through its willingness to still be episodic when the narrative calls for it, and in these standalone episodes showrunner Peter Morgan finds some of his strongest material. ... The Crown may put the “prestige” in “prestige television”, but it earns every dazzling moment.
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IndieWireNov 4, 2019
Season 3 Review:
What is on the screen in “The Crown” is a gorgeous display of some of the age’s best actors performing at the peak of their craft. ... And yet, Colman is relegated to reacting more than acting because of how her role is written. ... [Queen Elizabeth is] a complex sovereign in a complex time, the defender of the faith. Morgan should show some more faith in her himself.
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Dec 11, 2017Dec 11, 2017
Season 2 Review:
This personal, complex portrayal of a monarch who by her own admission in the show would rather be living any other life is riveting enough. But The Crown is also a history lesson, as my colleague David Sims has put it, albeit a selective one. It’s gorgeously shot, with flawless re-creations of everything from the Throne Room in Buckingham Palace to a 1950s hospital ward. And it’s surprisingly funny.
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Dec 11, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Despite the roiling tensions of the imminent ’60s and the various revolutions it holds, the Royal Family’s domestic politics are still what The Crown does best. And for every moment that falls apart under the weight of leaden metaphors, there are still several that shine. Royals may not be just like you or me, but they are, The Crown insists, prone to indulging the same trifling nonsense as the rest of us.
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The Daily BeastDec 8, 2017
Dec 7, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Foy has no problem filling the void left by Lithgow’s Churchill with another stellar performance that builds upon the experience and confidence Elizabeth gained last season. ... Elizabeth’s personal life, Philip’s identity crisis and the geopolitics of the era are seamlessly triangulated here.
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RogerEbert.comDec 7, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Clearly, The Crown doesn’t come close to experiencing a second-season slump. In some ways, it tops the highs achieved in its initial run, building on the already-complex relationships between Elizabeth, Philip, Margaret, the Queen Mother, and other members of the Royal Family and their retinue to create something even more layered and rich.
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Dec 7, 2017
Season 2 Review:
The season leans into the melodrama, filling every episode to the brim with plot and snappy dialogue, encouraging a binge-watch. And it may be even more tantalizing to viewers put in a royal mood by the recent announcement of Prince Harry's engagement to American actress Meghan Markle. It may be a fairy tale with the cracks showing, but it's still a fairy tale.
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Dec 7, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Not everything Mr. Morgan tries works--an episode involving Elizabeth’s complicated feelings toward Jacqueline Kennedy, and a plot contrivance in which Philip is more closely linked to the Profumo scandal than history would suggest, don’t pan out. But the pleasures of high-class melodrama are always present, as is the comforting notion--increasingly hard to believe--that our leaders can be compassionate, intelligent and exceedingly well behaved.
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Dec 6, 2017
Season 2 Review:
The first season was initially hagiography masking as a high-end TV series, but the second season is Vanity Fair, full of characters, life, humor, passion and buttered scones. Morgan not only has a series to match his 2006 Oscar-winning movie, “The Queen,” but finally one to exceed it. The Crown--the second season, anyway--is magnificent.
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Dec 6, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Cautiousness, propriety, and dowdiness have never seemed more soothing. Elizabeth remains the commonsense counterpoint to the flibbertigibbets around her, but she is now comfortable in her authority. Each episode is not a lesson in personal abnegation; instead, the new season mixes episodes about contained political events--an encounter with the Kennedys, a crisis caused by a vocal critic, the Duke of Windsor’s Nazi affiliations--with the really good gossip
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UPROXXDec 6, 2017
Season 2 Review:
The drama’s second season (it debuts Friday; I’ve seen all 10 episodes) unfortunately isn’t at that level [of season one]. It’s peppered with moments, and even whole episodes, that evoke the quality of season one, but overall there are enough decisions to bring it down into “If you like this sort of thing, you’ll probably like this sort of thing” territory, where once it was the sort of show where I always had to preface my remarks with, “I know this doesn’t sound like it’s for you, but…”
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Dec 5, 2017
Season 2 Review:
The new season is even more engaging that the first. The other reasons include Morgan’s writing, spot-on direction from Stephen Daldry, Philip Martin, Benjamin Caron and others, and superb performances at almost every level. ... The fact that it’s one of the best shows in town is just the jewel in The Crown.
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TV Guide MagazineNov 27, 2017
Season 2 Review:
A slow-starting but ultimately satisfying season that once again rules. [27 Nov - 10 Dec 2017, p.9]
Nov 27, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Foy is doing the best performance currently on dramatic television in her Elizabeth. ... There are few shows currently on air that convince you of how carefully considered its vision is, but The Crown does it constantly--whether that is the way the light streams through the window onto Philip’s shoulders, or the set of Elizabeth’s jaw as she addresses her prime minister. For that alone it is remarkable.
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ColliderNov 21, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Like its first season, each new episode makes its mark and tells its own complete story, all while staying linked to Elizabeth’s journey as a monarch, mother, and wife. It’s another exceptionally strong season of television, full of compelling drama and sweeping grandeur.
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IndieWireNov 21, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Some viewers may look for exactly this in their television: a beautiful recreation of historical events, connected by safe assumptions about the people who lived through them. But television is capable of so much more, and whether you like The Crown or not, its medium evokes stronger, richer feelings elsewhere.
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Nov 21, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Unafraid to delve deep into the Monarchy’s turbulent history, in its second season The Crown has once again set the bar for Netflix Originals. The series’ regal production design, sublime writing, and ravishing camerawork frame the ensemble’s consistently impeccable theatrics in pure gold. The biographical drama has justified its minutely dull setup and indeed shown viewers that heavy lies the crown.
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Nov 7, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The Crown struggles at times, but there’s something within it — a slumbering beast, deep beneath its waves, just waiting to surface. You catch glimpses of it here and there--when Elizabeth betrays someone in the name of the crown, especially--and those glimpses are enough to animate this first season.
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Nov 4, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The show will be compared to Downton Abbey, but that late soap opera was able to invent ahistorical or at least unexpected notes of benevolence and wisdom among its upper-crust characters. Foy struggles mightily, but she’s given little: Avoiding her children, her husband, and her subjects in favor of meetings at which she either acquiesces to her advisors or puts off acquiescing until fifteen minutes later, The Crown’s Elizabeth is more than unknowable. She’s a bore.
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Nov 4, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The Crown is sometimes too somber, and slow-moving to a fault (it intends to cover Elizabeth’s entire reign over six seasons). But if you’re looking for an immersive history lesson with all the royal trimmings (ermine and purple velvet among them), it’s an extremely engrossing watch.
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Nov 3, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The Crown never entirely figures out how to make the political and domestic drama genuinely dramatic, much less bestow complexity on characters outside England’s innermost circle (the scenes of Philip and Elizabeth in Kenya, in particularly, are face-palm condescending).
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TV Guide MagazineNov 3, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The irony is that while Elizabeth is continually told to suppress her individuality for the sake of the monarchy, the marvelous The Crown renders her more fully human than ever. [7 - 20 Nov 2016, p.12]
Nov 3, 2016
Season 1 Review:
What matters more is the way Morgan uses events--as small as Elizabeth's choice of a personal secretary and as large as her struggle to preserve the monarchy against duplicitous officials and her sister's need to "shine"--to illuminate Elizabeth and the country she rules. Those events may sometimes play out a bit slowly, but they're usually fascinating and they're never dull.
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Nov 2, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The Crown is gorgeously produced, impeccably cast and deals with a tantalizing period in British history. It is also grindingly slow, and occasionally feels like it's recycling material previously covered in other movies and miniseries...The good outweighs the disclaimers, in a project that oozes class from every pore.
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Nov 2, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The first chapter of Peter Morgan's chronicle of the rule of Queen Elizabeth II remains gripping across the entirety of the 10 episodes made available to critics, finding both emotional heft in Elizabeth's youthful ascension and unexpected suspense in matters of courtly protocol and etiquette.
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Nov 2, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The Crown is as beautifully filmed as could be, with scenes in Malta and Kenya as well as Balmoral in Scotland. The costuming is meticulous, as is the choreography of everything from dressing to mealtime to a train trip. Deliberate pacing (naysayers might say slow) allows time to appreciate all this.
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Oct 31, 2016
Season 1 Review:
What may at first seem too-familiar story is in fact a surprising and compelling portrait of someone we all think we know. [4 Nov 2016, p.55]
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