Critic Reviews
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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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Enjoy and appreciate all three of these principals in a Season Two that matches and sometimes surpasses the quality of the series’ initial 10 hours. The Crown remains a joy to behold and savor. ... This is drama of the highest calling.
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On every level, The Crown is deserving of praise. But it’s that subtle emphasis on the idea that even the most stubborn among us can at least try to evolve that makes it vital end-of-2017 viewing.
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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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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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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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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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By delving into the darkest recesses of the marriage--now graduated from whinging squabbles in season one to adulterous rumors in this one--The Crown achieves a groundbreaking, intimate look at a legendary union far beyond their many official portraits.
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Peter Morgan’s creation works so well as a whole because it’s consistently well written and lushly filmed--so lush it almost shames a small screen--but its greatest strength once again is in the casting.
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There’s more bitter than sweet in this season, to be certain; that doesn’t sour the story, however, which speaks to Morgan’s skill in building the story and the history, which he strengthens by making season 2 more of an ensemble piece and less reliant on Foy.
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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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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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The Crown succeeds because it gives us this fresh perspective on the world at that time, and in many ways, the events of the royals then are not that far from what’s happening today. This Crown continues to rule.
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Utterly fascinating. ... The Crown is a showcase for keen character observation and inspired acting, not only from Foy. As Philip, Smith is able to show more dimensions of a man who's hard to like, but not easy to outright condemn.
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A slow-starting but ultimately satisfying season that once again rules. [27 Nov - 10 Dec 2017, p.9]
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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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If the first season was reminiscent of The Queen, then the second season is more like The Other Boleyn Girl. The drama has been dialed up to 11 and the structure of the series is such that Morgan squeezes every ounce of romance from the stone.
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I find the show pretty bloody compelling.
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In striving to be more, The Crown, which delivers 10 robust new episodes Friday on Netflix, intermittently becomes too much.
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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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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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Because Foy is so excellent, her occasional shift to the background over these 10 episodes is a loss, but doesn't wholly detract from Morgan's nuanced exploration of the paradoxically potent impotence of British royalty in the 20th Century.
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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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The viewer won’t laugh much at the latest “Crown,” which suffers, as did the first season, from great swaths of tedious speechifying broken up by electric moments.
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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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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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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…”
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 124 out of 150
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Mixed: 7 out of 150
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Negative: 19 out of 150
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Dec 11, 2017
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Dec 9, 2017
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Dec 11, 2017