The Crown: Should I Start Watching It?

Not that The Crown was running short of publicity and attention, but the demise of the honourable Queen Elizabeth II, has driven more people towards the show, and it's getting some new traction after the news was announced.

For the unversed, season 5 of the show is about to start streaming on Netflix in a few weeks. Imelda Staunton will debut as Queen Elizabeth II in the upcoming season.

The show had recast the character once already. Claire Foy, who had won a Golden Globe, and an Emmy for her performance in the show, was replaced by Olivia Colman from season 3. The recasting is not restricted to the Queen alone, but multiple characters from the show have got recast to accommodate the time leaps in the narration.

If you have not set your eyes on the trending show yet, fret not, there are many of us. I did some research to see if I should get started on it. My first step was to see the performance of Claire Foy, as I would first spend two seasons watching her.

In comparison with Olivia Colman's performance, Foy's portrayal depicted the Queen as a rigid individual who appears tense, and alert. Colman's portrayal showed her as a relatively more relaxed soul. This shift might have been due to the age factor of the character and was probably a character arc. Irrespective of the factor behind the shift, it does seem interesting.

My next stop was Wikipedia. It has a detailed list of historical accuracies/inaccuracies of the show, season-wise, and a skim through it got me thinking, what would the Queen have thought about the inaccuracies if she had watched the show. And that got me asking, has the Queen watched The Crown?

Luckily, the question has been asked before, by the journalists at Independent.co.uk. They had published an article about the Queen's opinion on the show. While the Queen herself has not commented on it, a royal source apparently said that the Earl and Countess of Wessex, son and daughter-in-law (Prince Edward and Sophie) of the Queen, loved the show.

Apparently, they would frequently watch it with her on the weekends, when they have informal dinners with her. The Queen did find certain parts too dramatised, but she really liked it.

Well, if the show is good enough to impress the Queen herself, no wonder it has impressed so many. The Crown is definitely getting on my watchlist.