The Crown Season 5 debuted recently on Netflix.
I watched the first two episodes and if I didn’t know better, I’d say it has new writers who don’t understand what made it so gripping before.
In the past I did sometimes groan about how bleakly unhappy people are on it.
But it was done so well!
Plus making your characters miserable is mostly something I recommend.
Because audiences are basically sadists, and punishing our characters is what writers do. Whether it’s drama or comedy.
But while there’s still not a lot of happiness in these two hours, there’s also not much that’s compelling, in my opinion.
So let’s look at what has gone wrong, in terms that of writing in general, and TV writing.
I would put a spoiler alert here, but honestly, I see such little dramatic substance that there’s nothing to spoil. 🙂
If I sound upset I guess it’s because when you really loved something and then it seems to go off the rails, it’s somehow more alienating than if you just sampled it and were not drawn in.
First off, I’m not here to talk about casting.
While I don’t disagree with people who are puzzling over the great Dominic West as Prince (now King) Charles, the performances and who’s giving them are not my issue.
I want to talk about story and writing.
I’ll start with a brief recap of what happens in the two episodes. See if that gives you an idea of what I’m going to say about it.
In the season premiere…
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- The Queen is concerned that she’s gained a few pounds, and her yacht needs repairs that she wants the government to pay for.
- Diana and Charles go on a trip with friends we never met before. He wants to visit museums and such while she prefers the beach and shopping.
- They both continue to be unhappy in the marriage, which was explored at depth and with high emotion in Season 4. Here it’s kind of restated but somehow Charles doesn’t seem quite so bothered about it.
- What does intrigue Charles is a news article stating that the public thinks the Queen should step down and let him be King now. While her staff hide the article from her, he hints to new Prime Minister John Major that maybe they have a point.
- The PM squirms and demurs at this and also the Queen wanting her yacht money.
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Sound compelling?
It wasn’t. At least to me.
Then in Episode 2:
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- Prince Phillip takes up carriage racing!
- He tries to comfort a grieiving mother, a friend of the family who we don’t know, by getting her into it too. It kind of works.
- Diana begins recording her complaints about her life with the royals and letting another friend we don’t know deliver them to a book writer.
- She’s concerned her phone is tapped and someone is trying to stop them. Which doesn’t amount to anything.
- But when the book comes out and Phillip suspects she cooperated with it, he gives her a stern talking to. The one scene of drama in the first two hours reminiscent of this series’ past, in a good way. Although certainly not new territory.
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Now for the lessons: why does all of this not work and what does it teach us about compelling drama, and especially episodic drama?
1. Characters aren’t actively pursuing difficult-to-fulfill desires that have strong life stakes the audience can relate to, and encountering significant conflicts as they do so. Other than Diana getting the talking to from Phillip at the end of Episode Two. Yes, people want things and have feelings about them, but the stakes tend to be low (weight gains and yacht repairs!), the obstacles internal or theoretical, and the situations don’t build and complicate in intriguing ways as they pursue resolution and run into problems.
Which to me is the template for all good stories.
2. The scenes are low in conflict. They’re mostly people essentially getting along with each other. The Queen and Phillip. Phillip and the grieving mother. Diana and her friend. Yes, the characters have some complaints, but nobody likes watching people complain. Including Diana doing it into a tape recorder.
3. There’s little web of conflict. The episodes isolate people into two-character scenes that play out repetitively over the course of each hour rather than explore the larger cast of characters who used to have big agendas, disagreements, emotions, and major personal developments.
4. We’re not invested in the people. For all the reasons above. And also because the new ones who are introduced don’t get involving introductions or stories from their points of view. They’re secondary and mostly unknown to us. From John Major to Diana’s friend to the grieving mother. And we’re given little fresh insight or reason to care about the people we do know, who repeat what we’ve seen so much from them before, but with less emotion, conflict or stakes.
5. Nothing big is going on for the country. These figures have no meaty situations to deal with to help provide stakes and drama when their personal situations might not.
I’m sure it’s not easy to keep up the level of quality of a show like this for many seasons. And I really don’t want to be a complainer myself. It’s hard to do this well. I’m only talking about it here because those five points are worth keeping in mind for all of us, in everything we write.
It can be especially difficult with true stories. While things might change later in the season, it feels right now like The Crown is simply “chronicling events,” and not so compellingly. As opposed to imposing the criteria for good story on whatever source material they choose to focus on and explore, which they’ve done so brilliantly effectively for four years.
One challenge I’ve noticed in Season 5 is that the stories jump around between so many characters and storylines, that it weakens the overall narrative drive we saw in earlier seasons. Some of the best stories have little to do with the royals like the relationship between Mohamed al-Fayed and Sydney Johnson, former valet to King Edward. But it’s the intimate moments captured so beautifully between two characters, like Mohamed caring for Sydney on his deathbed, Prince Philip talking to Penny about grief, or Philip and the queen navigating the ever-growing distance in their marriage, that keep me watching. I also love the unknown windows into history. I was a Russian studies major, for example, but never knew that Czar Nicholas was abandoned by his cousin, King George of England, who could have sent a ship for their safe passage out of Russia.
I agree with your assessment of the first few episodes, and although it does get a bit more interesting with the entrance of the Fayed family, it still feels like they are really stretching this out fill up the season.
I find myself thinking, can we just get to the part where dianna gets involved with dodi?
It also feels like they are showing Charles and Camilla in a more favorable light. Dianna was hugely popular at that time, even after the disastrous, and completely unnecessary interview. It seemed like a rehash of everything we already knew then and now.
Of course, Dianna’s death will turn everything sideways, and I’m still interested as to how they will handle that. So, for me, it’s enough reason to keep watching.
I agree the first two episodes were a bit listless. The casting of Di and Charles was just off – for one thing, the actress is at least 6′ tall – way taller than Charles/West. She spends most of her time brooding, which I took for her unfortunate mental health struggles that seemed to escalate as her isolation grew.
Dominic is too masculine for the more sensitive role of Charles. He plays the role like he is done putting up with everyone’s crap – and just maybe he was. I don’t think he’d ever sell out his mother, though.
I was wondering if Harry’s connection to Netflix has caused them to be less sensational in the storytelling, or maybe there was a pause in the couple’s drama after the divorce. I do recall the crown in general took a huge (but momentary) beating from Diana’s interview – and now when I watch it, and know the truly offensive plotting that Bashir did …. no wonder she felt so picked on. However I also remember thinking ‘how can she do this to her sons?” She herself was from landed peerage – what the hell was she thinking?
At any rate, this is a good lesson in keeping the character stakes relatively high – whatever the story!
Erik, really value your analysis here.
Re story craftsmanship, it’ll be very interesting if THE CROWN is as compelling as THE QUEEN, which gave Peter Morgan his first Academy Award nom for Best Original Screenplay. Same exact story. Same dramatic quality? …We’ll certainly see.
As an American currently living in the United Kingdom, it’s also rather fastcinating too, listening how British audiences are reacting to Season 5, compared with American audiences. A lesson for screenwriters in the very real differences between global audience demographics.
Thanks again, Erik. Most appreciated.
It was BORING as hell. And Dominic West as Prince Charles is totally laughable. The other Diana and Prince Charles actors were WAY better.
Agree with you, Eric! What a snooze fest Episode 1 and 2 were except for that scene with Philip and Diana (and to make it worse, the Diana actress is carrying the tucked chin, doe-eyed gaze too far)..
All I could think of the carriage riding portion was that Norton’s wife had better be important later. Otherwise, who cares about that storyline?
Just five minutes ago, I was trying to pinpoint with my wife (both fans of the first four seasons, particularly the first two) why the first two episodes we watched last night, aren’t up to the standard of the previous seasons. What really stuck out was how the two episodes’ focus is relentlessly on the royal characters with no context of the UK’s political and social environment, something the previous seasons did so well. Thank you, Erik, for putting into concise words some of our meandering thoughts. Your reminder of the need for conflict and high stakes is really useful to remember for my own script projects based on real events. It’s good to hear the next episodes get better as we don’t want to give up on “The Crown” yet!
Thanks Ali! Watched Ep. 3 last night which is all about the Fayeds. Found it a bit more compelling but for me only a bit. I wasn’t as drawn into MF as the main character of this very different episode as much as I think I wanted to be. But that could be just me… 🙂
I only came to The Crown from the Diana entrance so I’ve nothing to measure this series against and being from England and being subject to witnessing the events as they unfolded (though I wasn’t a Royalist yet Diana’s death shocked me to the core) one tends to have a particular bias perhaps. And of course it’s that very delicious mixture of fact and fiction, there are tent-poles of actual events with the writers interpretations in between and of course it’s drama which has to have something compelling about it. Though I do wonder if this series is deliberately a set up for the next (obviously I guess) but they wished to have a slow build, like a pan on the cooker which we can see getting heated and will boil over and of course many folks know whats coming, the ‘ending’ (Though we have to remember Diana died 25 years ago and these scenes are 30 to 35 years old!)
Perhaps that plays a part in its low key scenes as we see the coming together of the main players going about their needs and wants, in a very British ‘stiff upper-lip way’. The Fayeds part being so prominent was a revelation, literally as we see their motivations (rather like the ancient Egyptian Kings who acquired wealth and trappings but really wanted acceptance, at least the father did, Dodi was after his fathers acceptance)
I think it was quite ‘light-weight’ to some degree, more like an old series of ‘Dallas’ say, a bit soap-opera with all due respect. Perhaps that’s deliberate as that sadly was how it was over here forgetting that real humans were subject to unbearable scrutiny, in particular Diana.
I think that the use of things like the Royal Yacht and the riding carriage that was renovated were obviously used as metaphors for various comparisons with various emotions felt by the Royals and how they were perceived and may have even been overdone, I’m not sure.
Whether or not the actual events had a bigger earthquake effect than this series and therefore has not stepped up to the expectation may well be fair comment, but then here I think they were never off the front pages and maybe folks got weary of it all…until….it’s been said that Charles only finally realised how much he loved Diana when he went to collect her body and that applied to this country and even the whole world so as I said maybe this is the low key calm before the storm series.
PS well worth watching the movie ‘Spencer’ which compresses many tensions into 3 days over Christmas 1991/2 and is quite brilliant in my opinion.
Thanks Les, I think you make some great points. Certainly the show is trying to do a lot of different things and is doing them, while hampered by true events and what’s possible to choose from at any given point.
It’s true that the first two episodes of Season 5 were disappointing, but episodes, 3, 4, and 5 were much more compelling. Some a bit repetitive, some inventive in the way the information is revealed.
Good to know – maybe we’ll keep watching. Thanks Roz!
I think they should cut from “The Crown,” and segue seamlessly into “The Windsors.”
Ha ha – hilarious show for those of you who don’t know it… the polar opposite tone, on the same subject…