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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
143
Mixed:
34
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews
Nov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
If the writing on The Crown Season 6 Part 1 falls a bit short where it counts the most, the cast at least delivers the goods. Imelda Staunton is still the most ineffectual Queen Elizabeth II the show’s produced, but she’s no longer in the spotlight, so it’s fine. Instead, The Crown Season 6 Part 1 belongs to Princess Diana and Elizabeth Debicki.
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Nov 16, 2023IndieWireNov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
Yes, the audience knows it’s coming, but with each ominous reference and blatant tease, it becomes harder and harder to believe her final days were anything like this. Forgetting verisimilitude, it also makes for vapid drama. “The Crown” is so preoccupied with one of the Royal family’s most infamous tragedies, it does little to develop anyone else.
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The PlaylistNov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
The four episodes don’t drag, and knowing what will happen builds dread before giving way to sorrow. In its final stretch, it tips further into overly symbolic dialogue, but thanks to Debicki’s stirring performance, “The Crown” still reigns when depicting this sprawling family soap opera.
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Nov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
If Season 5 was a bit boring and uneventful, Season 6 attempts to give every moment the taut tension of a violin string. Sometimes it makes for powerful television, but at other times it's exhausting, particularly in the third episode, which chronicles the night Diana and Dodi died.
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Nov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
Seemingly determined to both avoid the kind of rubbernecking that caused it and do justice to its enormous impact, creator Peter Morgan stretches the princess’ brief dalliance with Dodi, and the Crown’s harumphing response to same, across three slow, sparse, portentous episodes. Yet when it’s not simply boring, the season can be weirdly audacious, milking the mystery of Diana’s last days—as well as, unfortunately, her imagined afterlife—for manufactured poignancy.
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Nov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
In humanizing the two [Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed] in life and in death (there are no “ghosts” here), juxtaposed against the reigning monarch’s stoicism and commitment to grating tradition, the show invites the audience to consider the choices made by the British royal family, which have contributed to its relic-like state.
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Nov 16, 2023
Nov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
The Crown limits Elizabeth Debicki to a carefully outlined, inoffensive portrait. As they pass the children between each other, she and Dominic West invest a rueful, grown-up sadness into a failed relationship, but separately they tend to fall into predictable choices.
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Nov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
There was perhaps no way to gracefully cover this part of the story, not even in the earlier days when Morgan was able to view the whole complicated picture from 30,000 feet up. But now that he’s emotionally embedded himself so deeply into this world, it feels like an impossible task, and one where The Crown, like its queen, is not entirely sure how to address.
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Nov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
Interesting choices are almost completely absent in the first part of season six, with the exception of two different photographers serving as a framing device for episode two (not coincidentally the standout). In the brief moments that attention isn’t on Diana, we’re rehashing the same old stuff.
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Nov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
While the first half of the season may make an excellent Diana miniseries, it’s not entirely clear that it works as a concluding installment of The Crown, a show that once had a much more sweeping scope and grander ambitions than what often comes across as simple stenography. (Or propaganda, depending on how you feel about the wildly friendly edit this season gives Charles, who is, after all, now King of England.)
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SlashfilmNov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
As it nears its endgame, the show has become more serialized, particularly with these four episodes that make up the first half of the final season, all of which run into each other. I'm not quite sure that's a good thing, as it robs the series of much of its previous strength. Still, there's enough high drama packed into these four episodes to satisfy those of us who have stuck with the show over all these years.
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ColliderNov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
In hindsight, the previous installment may have been even more of a herald for where the series would end up by its finale. Although there's still the last half of Season 6 left to weigh in on, it's more than safe to declare that The Crown has lost much of what initially made it shine.
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Nov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
Chronicling Diana and Dodi’s brief romance and shocking death in a Paris car chase, Peter Morgan’s historical drama takes a wistful, careful, and restrained approach to one of the modern-day royal family’s most momentous tragedies. .... Chronicling Diana and Dodi’s brief romance and shocking death in a Paris car chase, Peter Morgan’s historical drama takes a wistful, careful, and restrained approach to one of the modern-day royal family’s most momentous tragedies.
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The IndependentNov 16, 2023
iNov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
Perhaps the romance of William and Kate will feel like an injection of hope. But for now the whole exercise feels a bit pointless and sad, focused more on impersonations than entertainment. When The Crown finally comes to an end, I suspect we will feel not grief, but relief.
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Nov 15, 2022
Season 5 Review:
Startling letdown. ... The season lacks narrative deftness and historic scale. ... Season 5 takes a more he-said, she-said approach to her [Diana's] marriage. The depiction rings true, though it lacks the camp and chaos that enlivened the previous version. ... Season 5 shies away from the inevitable; Dodi is smitten with a different spotlight-seeking blonde by its end. Because of that timidity (and the compressed time frame), the larger arc feels incomplete, structurally unsound.
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Nov 11, 2022
Season 5 Review:
Even with an impressive and capable new cast anchoring the proceedings, Morgan’s approach to the personal lives of the royals is too sympathetic to ever be damning. The new season of The Crown never risks challenging anyone’s reputation. Instead, it merely risks its own as a compelling show.
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Nov 9, 2022
Season 5 Review:
[Imelda Staunton] is splendid. ... [Peter Morgan] writes episodes as self-contained morality tales, emphasizing the construction of complicated metaphors over the mundane business of building characters. So Staunton fades away at times, to the show’s detriment. ... Season 5 doesn’t have the life, the hard snap, of “The Crown” at its best. And that’s where Charles and Diana come in. West and Debicki are, in different ways, both fine in the roles. ... But the two characters at the center remain opaque.
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Nov 9, 2022
Season 5 Review:
Absorbing but choppy fifth go-round. While it depicts tumultuous and unpredictable times for the royal family, it also presents some of the members of that family in ways that seem inconsistent with what we’ve come to expect from them, both within the context of this series and in the real world.
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Nov 9, 2022
Season 5 Review:
None of it builds to a larger thesis about these people or the institution itself. The impressively lavish settings can’t make up for the emptiness of the script. Scenes — and emotional arcs — don’t get a chance to play out, but flit from one location and set of characters to another.
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The Daily BeastNov 9, 2022
Season 5 Review:
There’s a sense this time around of, “Get to the good stuff!” The frustrating thing, I’m sure, is that there is no blame to be assigned to the series for that. The Crown is as engrossing (and endlessly watchable) as ever. The subject matter is the culprit. That said, the show does seem to be leaning into that obviousness in a way it never did before.
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Nov 8, 2022
Season 5 Review:
As it charts the royal family’s continued expulsion from their pedestal in season five, “The Crown” remains as superbly written and as addictive as ever. ... All of the new actors, like most of those before them, are extraordinary as they capture something genuine of the public figures they play. But it’s hard to see any continuity between Josh O’Connor, who evoked Charles so powerfully in season four, and Dominic West, who takes over the role.
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Nov 8, 2022
Season 5 Review:
The twin specters of grief and dread loom over the entire season. I felt my breath catch with emotion when I caught the first glimpse of Elizabeth Debicki as a still-hopeful, still-married Diana in the season five premiere. ... At times, I caught myself feeling empathy for the show’s progressively frustrated Prince Charles — or rather, the dramatized character that a brilliant Dominic West brought to life with surprising effect, even if he is far too handsome for the role.
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Nov 7, 2022Nov 6, 2022
Season 5 Review:
It’s an uneven, uninspiring season of television that fails to live up to the high standard of past seasons. ... It’s not all disastrous, though; there are some excellent things about this season, too. Namely, Lesley Manville’s Princess Margaret. ... Key members of the new ensemble cast feel like downgrades from the Emmy-winning stars of seasons past.
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The PlaylistNov 6, 2022
Nov 6, 2022
Season 5 Review:
The fifth season really zings when the show turns a hard gaze toward the maddening ways that Elizabeth and her cohort refuse compassion and adaptation. But just as often, if not more often, The Crown cozies up to its subjects, bathes them in a reverent and affectionate glow. ... It’s almost cruel how effective Debicki is in the series, when we know what all her fascinating portraiture is heading toward.
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ColliderNov 5, 2022
Season 5 Review:
Season 5 boasts yet another cast change-up, with varying levels of success — some actors are clearly trying to immerse themselves into the real-life people they've been tasked with playing, while others toss out the occasional word in the royals' received pronunciation accent and strive for little beyond that.
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Nov 5, 2022
Season 5 Review:
Few series have had the opportunity to truly capture the passing of half a century like The Crown has, and for that alone it’ll be remembered as one of 21st-century television’s most impressive achievements. And the all-star cast is as solid as the one which preceded it — it really remains impressive, how the show has consistently brought in such a high caliber of talent with each change-up.
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Nov 5, 2022
Season 5 Review:
At a time when seemingly every tabloid saga of the past half-century is getting adapted into an Emmy-bait miniseries, The Crown distinguishes itself by doing what it’s always done best: combining clear-eyed empathy, shrewd commentary and a refreshing intellectual curiosity into ten elegant hour-long episodes.
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The IndependentNov 5, 2022
Season 5 Review:
The reality is that The Crown ran out of steam a while ago. ... The longer it has gone on, the more it has assumed an exhaustive and soap operatic quality – not to mention that, in dedicating now two seasons to doomed lovers Charles and Diana, it has become increasingly tawdry. ... This penultimate season feels more insular, more gossipy, than ever.
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IndieWireNov 5, 2022
Season 5 Review:
Despite scripts that toil through the pulpy details of a very public divorce, strong design work on every level, and enlivening portrayals from the fresh ensemble (Lesley Manville is so good in her criminally truncated time as Princess Margaret), “The Crown” Season 5 suffers from a narrowed point of view.
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Nov 5, 2022
Season 5 Review:
The Crown has always been both a pleasure to watch, thanks to its lush production design and soapy undertones, and a more mixed success from an artistic standpoint. Season 5 is the same, but for different reasons. While the acting is no longer stellar across the board, and a vividly evoked Queen Elizabeth no longer dominates the story, the narrative itself becomes richer than ever.
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May 24, 2021
TV Guide MagazineNov 19, 2020
Season 4 Review:
The richest season to date of this juicy drama. [23 Nov - 6 Dec 2020, p.10]
Nov 16, 2020
Season 4 Review:
[Gillian Anderson's] introductory moments are entirely over the top and verging on cringeworthy, to the point that it nearly looks and sounds like her jaw might break off. But she soon relaxes her grip on Thatcher's mannerisms, and what emerges afterward is nothing short of masterful. Corrin immediately achieves a balance between the coquette and energetic idealist we picture Diana to be. ... Both Corrin's and Anderson's representations define this section of the Queen's life in ways that transform "The Crown" and our view of Elizabeth and our estimation of who these people are.
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Nov 16, 2020Nov 12, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Television acting doesn’t get much more nuanced and delectable than in those cool confrontations between the two powers [Gillian Anderson's Margaret Thatcher & Olivia Colman's Queen Elizabeth]. ... The opulent, epic, and yet intimate series returns to Netflix on Sunday with a particularly eventful and poignant fourth season. ... Watching the Charles and Diana saga play out in “The Crown,” I kept marveling at how successfully the material rises above previous scripted efforts to tell the story. Morgan elevates it all without screaming out the big themes — sexism, depression, the uselessness of love in the shadow of the crown.
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Nov 12, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Superb and sprawling. ... Where most shows would try to cram everything in, “The Crown” is all about smart choices. We don’t get the full blow-by-blow of Diana’s strange engagement to a difficult and even cruelly neglectful Charles, played terrifically by Josh O’Connor. ... These Charles/Di go-rounds may indeed butter “The Crown’s” bread, but the real news this time is Gillian Anderson’s devastatingly precise portrayal of Margaret Thatcher.
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Nov 11, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Yes, there are two big stories this season, but the one about Thatcher — Anderson, like Corrin, is brilliant, by the way — doesn't stand a chance opposite the other. Charles and Diana: Tragic characters straight out of Shakespeare, one whose blood runs cold, the other whose "passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love," to steal a line from another play. ... Best season yet.
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The Daily BeastNov 11, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Elizabeth and Diana's stories are parallel, though distinct, narrative threads that are duly and richly explored in the 10 episodes. In practice, they exacerbate what’s always been a nagging problem with the series’ hopscotching through history, a distracting incoherence. ... It’s not a catastrophic misstep. ... When it comes to the Diana plot, one of the sharpest moves the show makes is to drive home just how young she was when she entered the melee. ... Anderson’s disappearance into the role is so all-encompassing it’s nearly a distraction—which is mostly praise.
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Nov 11, 2020
Season 4 Review:
The fourth season is the first in which the domestic tensions among the royals is anywhere near as interesting as the British history that unfolds outside the palace gates. Creator Peter Morgan and his writers remain impressive in their ability to condense national events into dramatically compelling crises-of-the-week and flesh out real-life personages through just a few scenes.
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Nov 10, 2020
Season 4 Review:
[Lady Diana Spencer (Emma Corrin)'s] transformation from the “Shy Di” young wife of Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) to the desperately unhappy, but increasingly popular, Princess of Wales gives Season 4 a propulsive energy. Equally riveting are storylines involving Margaret Thatcher (played with clenched-jaw virtuosity by Gillian Anderson). ... If anything, Season 4 of “The Crown” suffers from an overabundance of plotlines that beg for more attention.
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Nov 10, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Together, Thatcher and Diana give The Crown an energy and a sense of direction it lacked in the third season, and a feeling of verve the show has arguably never approached before. In the writing and in the performances, there is this sense that everyone involved has finally gotten to the good stuff, and they’re all pleased as punch about it.
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Nov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Season 4 largely succeeds because of the way Diana (Emma Corrin) and Thatcher (Gillian Anderson) are integrated into the cast and stories, and how creator Peter Morgan is able to use both characters as broader symbols for the monarchy's continual crash into modernity. It also doesn't hurt that Corrin and Anderson are both excellently suited for their roles.
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Nov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
For four seasons now, Morgan has written a remarkably addictive, stealthily silly royal soap opera that only occasionally understands just how obvious it can be. And yet, complemented with razor-sharp performances and furnished with the most luxurious set design that Netflix money can buy, “The Crown” has successfully sold itself as one of TV’s most serious dramas. The fourth season, in all its shameless glory, may be its most successful yet even as it puts that prestigious perception to bed.
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The TelegraphNov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
The encounters between the two women [The Queen and Margaret Thatcher] are a running theme, and make for delicious viewing. But the real star of this fourth season is, inevitably, Diana. ... It all makes for a riveting soap opera. And, against all this, Mrs Thatcher is almost light relief.
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Nov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Marketing and storytelling both seem to focus on the three women in power at the heart of the season, but it’s very uncertain what Morgan is really looking to say about them or their connection to one another. ... Despite this, and some unforgivably heavy-handed visual juxtapositions throughout, The Crown is still an engrossing chronicle of House Windsor—most especially when its scope is small. That is thanks largely to the exceptionalism of its cast.
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The PlaylistNov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
The surprise this season, however, isn’t Corrin’s at times heartbreaking performance, but that Gillian Anderson’s portrayal of another prominent figure of the era, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, somehow overcomes the supernova of Diana’s still-cherished moment in history. ... Yes, Morgan has peppered the sit-downs between Anderson’s Thatcher and Colman’s Queen with more condescension and sly digs than any of Elizabeth’s previous elected cohorts (and it’s absolutely glorious to watch), but its a creative liberty that works in the context of their unique places in history.
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ColliderNov 9, 2020
Nov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
The Charles and Diana soap opera shines in part because of its built-in cache, but mostly because Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin are the season’s standouts. ... Less impressive is Gillian Anderson’s Margaret Thatcher. ... But it’s a credit to showrunner Peter Morgan and Emma Corrin herself that Princess Di doesn’t takeover the entire show. There are still standalone episodes devoted to peculiar moments for the monarchy.
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Nov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Corrin handles the burden of portraying Diana — one of the most beloved public figures of the 20th century — admirably. ... O’Connor is uncannily skilled at portraying the prince’s chimeric moods — the arrogance and entitlement, the hangdog malaise, the insecurity and yearning. ... It’s a season of next-level performances, really. Anderson’s turn as Thatcher is so viscerally physical. ... She is transformed.
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The IndependentNov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
So dazzling are these performances that the real historical events that serve as raw materials for The Crown often feel like an afterthought. ... The stillness at the centre of this storm is Colman. She is quietly riveting as the plot wends its way to a predictable conclusion.
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IndieWireNov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Colman is now allowed to own the monarch’s authority in her performance. And with foils like Anderson and Corrin, all three turn in very brittle and beautiful performances. ... Beyond reveling in the tawdry candy-colored tale of Charles and Di, Morgan’s writing on the show routinely explores notions of classicism, privilege, sexism, and racism. But this time around, the undercurrents surface in a way that is timely, incisive, and, ultimately, more pointed and hopeful.
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The IndependentJan 3, 2020
Season 3 Review:
Colman, by contrast, brilliantly inhabits the Elizabeth we all know and take for granted. There’s something dazzlingly banal about her. ... Tobias Menzies is less convincing. ... Three seasons in, the formula to which The Crown bends the knee is as plain as a huge gem-encrusted headpiece.
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The GuardianDec 3, 2019
Season 3 Review:
It is all beautifully done and tastefully told. Every penny spent is up on screen. It is immaculate. It will leave you either longing for the monarchy to be decapitated for its endless, parasitical privilege (great scenes arise from Philip complaining about being asked to cut back on his yacht consumption, for example) or abolished for the Windsors’ own good.
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TV Guide MagazineNov 25, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Each of the 10 episodes tells a complete and gripping story. ... By peering through what the queen calls "the mystery and the protocol" to witness the stifled humanity of these iconic public figures, this drama truly is a crowning achievement. [25 Nov - 8 Dec 2019, p.10]
Nov 20, 2019
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