Why Did The Crown Series Get a Decreasing Rating In The Last Episode?

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While the finale of Peter Morgan's six-season series The Crown is airing on Netflix, why did the last season of the once highly acclaimed series about the British Royal Family go downhill?

Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022 after reigning for 70 years. The diminishing presence of Elizabeth II in the last two seasons of the series prompted the question "What went wrong with the series?" It actually answers the question. Now that screenwriter Peter Morgan's six-season run on the Queen's life has come to an end, it can be said that, when evaluated from a holistic perspective, the series shows that the more it focuses on the Queen, the better it is.

There is broad agreement that the show's final two seasons were much weaker than its previous glory days. In these final episodes, the Queen often remains in the background, either nodding at then-prime minister Tony Blair or sighing at Prince Charles. Yet the show's success lay in its ability to include intimate emotional details that showed what the Queen might be like behind her enigmatic public presence. Political and family intrigue revolved around him, from the Suez Crisis to trying to cope with his sister who drank too much. His strong character was always the focus.

Claire Foy, who played the younger Queen, was hopeful and confident in her performance to live up to her title. Olivia Colman seamlessly took over the role of the middle-aged Queen, now confident but struggling with personal and political troubles, responding to the miners' strike and worrying that Charles had fallen in love with an unsuitable woman, Camilla Shand. His characters were based on clever speculations from a psychological perspective - he had to have doubts and dark moments - which made him less of an extra, giving him more liveliness.

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Imelda Staunton, as the elderly Queen, was calmer and privately concerned about the future of the monarchy. If Elizabeth seems less effective this term, it's partly because Staunton is given so little presence in the series. Morgan's debut film The Queen (2006), which depicts his slow reaction to Diana's death, and The Audience (2013), which is about Queen Elizabeth II's weekly private meetings with British prime ministers, are about following known facts closely and presenting the gaps convincingly. It follows the successful formula of filling the He successfully carried this strategy to the TV series The Crown.

And in the series, she surrounded Queen Elizabeth II with sharply drawn characters and performances. Although not one of the first names that come to mind for this role, John Lithgow's Winston Churchill, the kind but deceitful first prime minister; Famous actress Gilian Anderson's portrayal of the angular Margaret Thatcher character was some of them. Princess Margaret went from beautiful wild child, played by Vanessa Kirby, to pleasure-loving jet-setter with Helena Bonham-Carter, to the intimidated sister played by Lesley Manville.

Much of the endless whining about how accurate The Crown TV series is to history has to do with details in the series that are actually very close to reality. Churchill's dead assistant in season one, which dealt with the Great London Fog of 1952, may have been fictional, but the forgotten case in which thousands of people died was one of the many events the series brought into mainstream culture.

The series did an excellent job as a history lesson wrapped in a family melodrama. However, the last two seasons have reheated the stories of Diana and Dodi, Charles and Camilla, and Will and Kate that they did not really need and were tabloid hits. The problem isn't just that the story moves closer to the present day. This is also a problem though. After reading the transcripts of Charles' phone call to Camilla, in which he tells Camilla, "I want to be your buffer," people have a lot less space to fill in their minds.

An even bigger problem is that existing speculations have become more far-fetched and not as sharp as they used to be. In some cases, these speculations go completely off the rails. For example, writer Morgan's obsession with abdication. Last season, the completely fictional scene in which Charles asks Prime Minister John Major for help in unseating the Queen caused reactions.

There is another variation of this in the rather cumbersome final episode of the series. It's clear that Morgan was trying to foresee Elizabeth's death, even though the chronology of the story in the series ends in 2005. The Queen and Prince Philip plan their own funerals in this final episode that brings together so many elements. The place Prince Philip chose for his hearse shill Land Rover shown. It is also claimed that the Queen was very close to announcing that she had decided to abdicate on Charles and Camilla's wedding day.

The last frame of the series may unintentionally bring to mind a viral drawing showing Paddington walking away with his bear after the Queen's death. This ridiculous connection shows how far the series has fallen from its great beginnings by losing its believably real hero.

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for The Crown series.