"The Crown" Season 5 Trailer: Ghost of Britain's Omnishambles Past

By Alberto Cox Délano | TV | October 20, 2022 |

By Alberto Cox Délano | TV | October 20, 2022 |

Maybe Netflix should’ve postponed the trailer’s release date. The omnishambles in the UK’s seats of power is going full Argentina; I don’t think people have the bandwidth to pay attention to the trailer of a TV season, even for one of the most popular shows in the world.

Nevertheless, the trailer for the fifth season and third generation of The Crown is out. We have Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth II, Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip, Elizabeth Debicki as Diana, and Dominic West as then-Prince Charles. Oh, and Jonny Lee Miller as Conservative Prime Minister John Major, something that caused a lot of … confusion among some of my colleagues.

What else can we say, other than the fact that this is the role Elizabeth Debicki was born to play. For those of us who have thirsted stanned her ever since her debut almost a decade ago, this feels like justice. Let her be 6’2, Hollywood. But when it comes to Charlie 3’s casting … it can only be explained as the showrunners trying to be less harsh on the New King. Let’s face it, Dominic West fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. He’s too bloody charismatic to play Charlthree back then, at his most pathetic.

From what can be gathered from the trailer, this season will cover the period between 1991 and 1997, opening with a shot of Windsor Castle in flames and snippets of the Hong Kong handover. In between, we get glimpses of Charlie III being a pompous ass, Prince Philip being impossible, a weary Diana (AND YES, we see her in The Dress), Princess Margaret (Lesley Manville) reconnecting with an old flame, an ex that happens to look like a Silver Fox James Bond, and John Major arguing that this one family crisis could threaten the stability of Britain (oh, honey!). In the final shot, the Queen wonders where all went wrong.

Royals would rather let a Revolution wash over them than go to therapy.

The Crown is at its best when it delves deeply into a shorter period of time, and its worst when it fast-forwards over periods in British History that are relevant, like the Swinging ’60s, Beatlemania, everything good the Labour governments of the ’60s and ’70s achieved, and most of The Troubles. But when it’s focused, it transcends being just the Best and Most Lavish Melodrama in TV History. Britain in the ’90s is the kind of era you can’t simply gloss over. At least for me; I have a tendency to idealize certain periods. Accordingly, the trailer is set to a slowed-down version of a classic of Cool Britannia. Before clicking on the link, guess which one it is. The winner wins nothing but bragging rights.

The Crown’s Fifth Season premieres on November 9.