The Crown

[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.

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.

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.

Yes, there is the odd historical inaccuracy, but it is in my view Peter Morgan's best series yet and, overall, five-star television.

While Season 4 offers magnificent opulence, magnetic performances, and flawless execution, it’s underlying theme asks if the time for change has finally come.

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.

The best and most addictive season yet. All 10 episodes of the royal drama are a binge-watcher's dream. Olivia Colman is the shining jewel in ‘The Crown,” but Emmy love, please, for Emma Corrin as Lady Di and a knockout Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher.

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.

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.

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.

The dissonance between spoiled Royals and the modern world has turned darker, and the nobility seems a lot less noble. But it’s still a fascinating mess for us mere mortals to watch.

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.

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.

Anderson, a favorite in British theater, shows American audiences yet another nuanced take that manages to nudge even Colman’s performance. ... While Corrin doesn’t make a deep impression until the third episode, she gives Diana a strength we haven’t seen before.

Its strengths grow stronger; its weaknesses may not grow weaker, but they certainly become more apparent. The result is 10 episodes of television that may not be uniformly among the show’s finest, but which are somehow its most authentic.

All of the drama of the 1980s bubbles away underneath, and its soapiness rarely jars like it once did. It is a delicious stage for brilliant actors to do their best work.

In its sharp and splashy fourth season, the show finally criticizes Elizabeth for her ignorance, characterizing her as a ruler whose stubborn devotion to tradition makes her and her family out-of-touch fools caught off guard by change.

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.

[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.

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.

The result is an absorbing season, both incredibly satisfying and, often, painful to watch unfold.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.