Netflix’s fan-favourite series The Crown is finally making its long-awaited return.
The historical drama, which chronicled the life of Queen Elizabeth II between the 1940s to the present day, in its first four seasons, is set to premiere its fifth in less than a week.
Scheduled to make its royal debut on the streamer on 9 November, series five is expected to be the penultimate season of The Crown.
Its official trailer teased its storyline will largely focus on the late Princess Diana’s (Elizabeth Debicki) disintegrating marriage to King Charles III (Dominic West).
Elsewhere, the teaser shows Diana taking a seat for her now infamously discredited Panorama interview and recklessly blowing through an intersection. “People will never understand how it’s really been for me, I never stood a chance,” Diana reflects amid the chaos.
The series’ return comes amid increased scrutiny following the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the anticipation of the King’s coronation on 6 May. As the show progresses, its historical timeline approaches closer to present-day events.
Last month, Dame Judi Dench joined several big Hollywood names in criticising Netflix for the inclusion of certain scenes, which she labelled as “crude sensationalism”.
According to Dench, these scenes depict “King Charles plotting for his mother to abdicate” and show him “suggesting his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence”.
She called these scenes “wounding suggestions”, writing in a letter to The Times: “This is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent. No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged.”
Just this week, Debicki urged critics to “move on” from complaining about the show’s depiction of the royals.
Her comments follow those made by Sir Jonathan Pryce, who recently said he was “hugely disappointed” by the critical reaction of his “fellow artistes” to The Crown.
Season five of The Crown debuts on Netflix on 9 November.
