The Crown Season 5 Review: Highly Entertaining Season Of Royal Contretemps

Cast: Imelda Staunton, Elizabeth Debicki, Jonathan Pryce, Lesley Manville, Jonny Lee Miller, Dominic West
Directors: Jessica Hobbs, Alex Gabassi, May el-Toukhy,Christian Schwochow, Erik Richter Strand, Christian Schwochow

The fifth season of The Crown, constituting 10 episodes, follows the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II, during the period from 1991 to 1997. It's the first season to be released directly after the deaths of Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II, and as such manages to evoke a strong sense of pathos.

The Crown as a series still has a long way to go before it reaches that pivotal point in the current history of the Royals but needless to say, every moment of this series of episodes is both intriguing and immensely compelling.

All the cast members of The Crown Season 5 are new to the series but despite that, one doesn't get the feel that there are continuity glitches in this immaculate telling of a contemporary period of Royal turbulence.

Imelda Staunton takes over from Olivia Colman as Elizabeth, Lesley Manville portrays Princess Margaret, Jonathan Pryce and Elizabeth Debicki are cast as Prince Philip and Diana, Princess of Wales, respectively. Dominic West plays Prince Charles, Jonny Lee Miller is cast as John Major and Olivia Williams portrays Camilla Parker Bowles. Most of the cast members manage to look like the real royals and some - even if they don't look alike - manage to present the façade of royalty with great aplomb.

Since the new season has a brand new cast and as it comes after a two-year-long wait, there's not much reason for The Crown fatigue to set in - despite its long run. Peter Morgan's vivid recreation of the British royal family and its regular bumps and grinds with the media and public alike, is backed by heavy research, headline moments and psychological analytics.

The show's new and final Queen Elizabeth II, Imelda Staunton plays the monarch in her late 60s, as she copes with an unprecedented series of disastrous events that begged the question as to whether the British Monarchy was a necessity at all. Staunton literally lives the role even though she doesn't look anything like the Queen she is essaying. The acclaimed actress is playing an Elizabeth we got to see a lot of in public because of the many tragedies that befell her family during that momentous decade. We get to see how much effort the Queen puts into doing her duty by the country and how keeping the family image is so important to her subjects. Staunton's Elizabeth is vulnerable and human just as the rest of us and it's as much a triumph for the writing as it is for the veteran's stunning performance.

This season focuses mainly on Prince Charles and Princess Diana and their many follies and foibles, as they near the breaking point of a marriage that never stood a chance. Dominic West as the new Charles is pretty convincing but it's Elizabeth Debicki's Princess Diana who wins our hearts just like the real one. Her look, performance, and carriage are so like the original that you might even begin thinking she is the real one coming back to life.

Morgan's title for each episode says it all. The first episode of the The Crown Season 5 is titled 'Queen Victoria Syndrome' and compares Elizabeth's latter reign to that of Queen Victoria's when she began to fall foul of popular opinion.

The other episodes titled 'The system,' 'Mou Mou,' 'Annus Horribillis,' 'The Way Ahead,' 'Ipatiev House,' 'No Woman's Land,' 'Gunpowder,' 'Couple 31,' and 'Decommissioned' - all allude to trying moments that the Royal Family had to cope with in order to stay afloat in the people's mind.

We get to see Mohamed al-Fayed's (Salim Daw) rise to millionaire status, the Bahamian valet Sydney Johnson's (Jude Akuwudike) employment by the Duke of Windsor (Alex Jennings) and then the upstart wannabe Fayed, and Diana's tryst with his son Dodi Al- Faye's (Khalid Abdalla).

Then Lady Diana's revenge interview with award-winning BBC journalist Martin Bashir (Prasanna Puwanarajah), Prince Philip's close friendship with Penny Knatchbull aka Lady Romsey (Natasha McElhone) and how it affected Elizabeth deeply at a time when Russia was at loggerheads with Britain following the break-up of the Soviet Union.

The headline-grabbing moments are obvious here but there are also some really intimate details that we were not privy to. Morgan uses allegory and allusion quite liberally to tell his mini-stories.

But the Charles-Diana contretemps is told with a stiff upper lip. There appears to be much hesitancy in making Charles own up to his much obvious responsibility for making Diana's life miserable. The characterisations are pretty strong and believable, the high points that led to the sad break-up have voyeuristic detail, and the other many mini-dramas are presented with a great deal of intelligence and to compelling effect.

Morgan's fictionalizations are not exactly history, they are his perception of it and as such must be taken with a pinch of salt. Even so, the manner in which the drama unfolds and the way he pitches the audience into an intimate experience of the United Kingdom's Royal life, need to be commended.

This is one of the most eventful seasons of The Crown and as such is the most entertaining, too.