The Crown

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.

It’s in the private chambers just on the outskirts of the well-known story — settings where the public record had no business being or going at the time — where this four-episode arc of “The Crown” does its most interesting work.

Debicki’s work — and I hesitate to use that word, since her performance is so natural and effortless — anchors the set of four episodes streaming Thursday (the last six arrive Dec. 14), so that the tragedy that ensues has all the emotional weight it deserves.

Some may baulk at a few stylistic choices made towards the end of this penultimate batch of episodes, but for the most part The Crown’s final season portrays Diana's death with admirable restraint.

While some “imaginings” are gauche, most performances here are excellent. The question is, is it a compelling piece of television with very high production values that makes you want to see more? The answer is yes.

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.

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.)

This is a perhaps soapy recounting of events, overly forgiving and flattering of some, too condemning of others. But that tendency toward reverent melodrama is what makes The Crown such a semiguilty pleasure.

This is actually the strongest string of episodes The Crown has produced in a while, and then—BOO!—Ghost Diana shows up.

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.

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.

he father-son dynamic is engrossingly fraught, and Abdalla is especially good as a spineless ne’er-do-well at the mercy of a controlling father. .... The movie [2006's "The Queen"] got its jabs in. Morgan doesn’t seem up for that anymore.