After The Crown, can we finally lay Diana to rest and hit pause, Netflix?
It’s about knowing when to leave. Careful, Crown creators, if you push the envelope too far your love letter to the Queen is in danger of becoming a poison pen, warns KERRY PARNELL.
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After The Crown comes to a close, can we finally lay Diana to rest?
This week, the trailer launched for the new season of The Crown. Netflix’s blockbuster series is streaming Season Six – its final one – in two parts, from November 16.
This season – which creator Peter Morgan hadn’t planned on making – will cover one of the most seismic events in the Windsors’ history, the death of Diana.
Diana, played by Australian actor Elizabeth Debicki, died, as we all know, aged 36, in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris on August 31, 1997, with Dodi Fayed.
And while the streaming service says the crash itself will not be recreated, her last summer is, in detail.
In one promo shot, Debicki appears as Diana, in the iconic image of her in a swimsuit, sitting on the diving board of a yacht in Portofino, just before she died.
Looking at that picture makes me feel sad all over again that such a terrible end was about to befall Diana, at the point she finally felt free. It also makes me reflect what it must feel like for her sons, family and friends, to see it all again.
Netflix says they are treating the story reverently, but if you thought her spirit could rest after this, think again, because the UK Telegraph revealed Diana will appear in the series as a ghost, speaking to the late Queen and Prince Charles.
It’s reported she thanks Charles for weeping over her body, saying, “Thank you for how you were in hospital. So raw, broken and handsome. I’ll take that with me.”
And there’s a scene where she holds hands with the Queen and tells her: “As long as anyone can remember, you’ve taught us what it means to be British. Maybe it’s time to show you’re ready to learn too.” Yuk.
A Netflix source described the scenes as “sensitive and thoughtful imagined conversations”, which, “seek to bring to life the depth of emotion that was felt after such a seismic tragedy struck at the heart of the family.”
“Mawkish and maudlin” are alternative adjectives, I suggest, but perhaps I’m too cynical.
The final season is understood to run from 1997 to 2005, so will also cover the deaths of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret in 2002 and end on the marriage of Charles and Camilla in 2005.
Having sworn he was going to finish the series after Season Five, calling it, “the perfect time and place to stop,” Peter Morgan then did a 360 and decided to continue. “It soon became clear that in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of the story we should go back to the original plan and do six seasons,” he said.
But what’s the betting Netflix execs want to him to continue just a little longer and end what he described as a “love letter to the Queen”, with her death?
The problem is, The Crown is in danger of turning what was a love note into a poison pen letter, the longer it continues. So, I’m hoping there’s no postscript.
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