'The Crown' buckles under weight of history

With bated breath, I sat down to watch the sixth season of The Crown on Netflix. The series is perfect for 'couple' viewing, especially if you are one of Princess Diana's generation. We all remember where we were on that fateful day of August 31, 1997, and the 'end of an era' as her tragic passing was announced.

Unfortunately, the long-awaited new season of Netflix's acclaimed royal drama gets off to a shaky start. This first chapter, dealing exclusively with the last months of Princess Diana's life, often lapses into tawdry melodrama and needs more sophisticated storytelling that defines the show's early years.

In pivoting so abruptly to focus on Diana and Dodi Fayed's brief romance, seasoned creator Peter Morgan seems to lose the thoughtful, measured pace that made The Crown stand out. Heavy-handed foreshadowing abounds as if the tragic conclusion requires no delicate handling. Nuance gives way to cheap manipulations of the viewer's emotions through spectral visitations post-mortem. The pace is gripping, but the sense of fatal inevitability colours the, at times, turgid dialogue and the viewer's excessive awareness of the impending catastrophe awaiting the ill-fated couple.

Not even the staunchest defender of artistic license could justify such feeble indulgences. Can ghosts offer any valuable new insight into these very public lives? Do such paranormal flourishes serve any purpose besides inflaming old wounds and memories? Even the most ardent royal watcher will find these scenes wince-inducing in their sheer reach.

Fortunately, the stellar cast manages to anchor the season and elevate the more grounded moments with subtle gravitas. Newcomer Elizabeth Debicki steps effortlessly into Diana's shoes, capturing her complicated charisma and hard-won confidence. She shines when allowed to embody the living woman rather than the mythologised martyr. If only the writing rose to meet Debicki's level rather than undercutting her performance with heavy-handed omens of impending doom.

Perhaps it is unsurprising that in stretching to dramatise the pivotal tragedy that shook Britain's royal family, The Crown has buckled under the weight of expectations. This moment may have presented an impossible balancing act for a show centered on elucidating the inside story of one of history's most scrutinised institutions, bound to conventions of prestige while navigating the personal and political.

Disappointingly, this season seems trapped between remaining true to the show's signature nuance versus exploiting an irresistible and climactic real-life event for maximum sensationalism. Struggling to satisfy both masters while doing justice to all, it falters badly.

Whether due to commercial pressures, misplaced but well-intentioned muckraking, or mere creative exhaustion plumbing the depths of the Windsors' lives for a sixth straight season, something led Morgan astray. The Crown sacrificed its greatest strengths in reaching for answers via the beyond, sacrificing plausibility and intimacy. By veering into supernatural speculation and hyperbolic narrative shortcuts, these episodes abandon the down-to-earth insights that humanised a seemingly superhuman family.

Caught between disparate objectives, Morgan staged an unintentional masterclass on the difficulties of portraying immensely public figures. Must creators rehash agreed-upon history or seek hidden truths through guesswork. Is the priority to move and empower audiences or ensure fairness for living figures and heirs unable to consent? The Crown's unexpected stumble highlights such questions but needs more satisfactory answers, leaving only clumsy spectacle and contrived drama. Ghosted narratives are a poor substitute for the earthly witness of flesh and marrow, even if dramatically speculative.

Diana's tragic end represents a singularly pivotal and painful episode for the British and even the Irish tabloid-fueled psyche. Given Morgan's proven gift for uncovering resonant emotional truths within the monarchy's well-worn façade, the events of August 1997 would seem fertile territory. Yet the show's attempts to posthumously analyse and dramatise Diana's last days fatally undermine the elegant subtlety that propelled its early seasons.

In The Crown's previous seasons, Morgan demonstrated remarkable acumen, mining insight from small gestures and quiet encounters. Through tiny tearful tremors in a stalwart matriarch, he elicited volumes about the suppressive rigidity of the crown upon its wearer and her kin. Via seemingly insignificant exchanges behind the castle gates, he peeled back the layers of decorum and tradition to lay bare the imperfect humanity beneath.

This season finds no such nuance or illumination focused as it is on a mere few weeks. Amplified by awareness of the looming disaster, tension curdles into lurid suspense. The narrative and ending are tunnelled to the same Paris underpass. Cursory treatment of supporting figures renders context into caricature. When the violent, inevitable conclusion arrives right on cue, it lands with a crash loud enough to drown out any subtler notes Morgan might have managed.

Diana's shocking end represents the most dramatic moment imaginable. As portrayed in these episodes, it dwarfs all nuance and introspection subsumed in mounting morbid anticipation. The finer details and inner lives that made The Crown shine fade into a blunt backdrop. Such a singularly brutal rupture would likely distort the delicate balance upon which the show was built.

Rather than wrest some greater significance from the princess' death as his staging seems desperate to do, Morgan might have ceded to its brute force. As rendered, Diana's final chapter fatally disrupts and unmoors the show built around her like the violent crash itself rather than reconciling her role within its central themes.

In the young royals especially, glimmers emerge to remind us of what made The Crown such a treasure at its best. Rufus Kampa and Fflyn Edwards project the wounded confusion and aching empathy of princes struggling to comprehend their mother's permanent absence. Though limited to a few scenes conveying the raw immediacy of loss, their presence grounds the season.

The reliable ensemble cast sparks even when scripts falter. Imelda Staunton stands steadfast as ever as the Queen, even when afforded minimal screen time. Jonathan Pryce savours the few morsels of dialogue tossed Philip's way. Despite truncated roles and relationships never afforded room to fully breathe, the masterful inhabitation of their characters offers faint echoes of the immersive dynastic drama that once absorbed viewers.

Brief reminders of the show's former thoughtfulness flicker across overly engineered exchanges. 

"Perhaps there is honour in moving forward. In working to understand before seeking to be understood" offers one spectral visitant, but all too overtly. Nevertheless, the sentiment rings true and is recognisable despite its vessel.

With another batch of episodes slated for December to wrap up Elizabeth II's story, hope remains that The Crown can muster a more graceful farewell on the second attempt. Having botched its first pass at handling Diana's death with uncharacteristic clumsiness, perhaps it can regain its typically excellent form when freed from the transfixing glare of that harsh media spotlight.

Though undeniably captivating and crowned by excellent performances, early hints of this season's anticipated majesty emerge only in fleeting fits and false starts. Overwhelmed by historical import and self-imposed expectations, the show fails to rationalise the climactic tragedy already burned into Britain's memory. Forced to bear the mantle of Diana's downfall, the once-mighty Crown buckles tragically beneath its weight.