Season 6 Review I was really rooting for this series, especially after what I felt was a disastrous Season 5. Regrettably, despite some great moments, Season 6 did not right all the wrongs.
It did, however, prove that Elizabeth Debicki, as Princess Diana, has the stuff of a major movie star. As opposed to Season 5, where I felt she was a great mimic, in Season 6, I felt she inhabited Diana. I felt like Diana had come back to earth and spirited herself into Elizabeth's body. She was outstanding.
I also felt like Dominic West as Prince Charles came into his own. I felt he made an extraordinary effort to give the sense of the real Charles, and we got a window into Charles's humanity, which made him a lot more three-dimensional.
Obviously, as the show understands, the arrival of Diana completely turned the world of these very dull, isolated "royals" upside down. But, as is well known, instead of embracing her, they expected her to be dull, boring and dowdy like them. We also know how that ended.
Season 6 spent a lot of time focused on Diana's ultimate demise, her children William and Harry (William, in particular, played Ed McVey), and/or, perhaps more importantly, the relationship between William and Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy).
We could see that with Diana gone, the paparazzi were going to focus on Will and would be relentless, all over again. It was quite sad.
And finally, the whole reason I had any interest in watching the show in the first place: The Queen.
Again, as I was in Season 5, despite Imelda Staunton's many gifts as an actress, her very pinched face and her very tiny stature did not lend herself to the Queen, who had real presence when she walked into a room, much like her previous incarnations, Claire Foy and Olivia Colman. So, while I enjoyed watching her as an actress, I could not stop thinking that she resembled an antique doll. It was sad.
The other standout was Lesley Manville, as Princess Margaret. In her big dying episode, she was fantastic. You could sense that this woman had lived this incredible life. It was powerful.
Ultimately, though, I came away from this not understanding why we have "royal families" anymore, and, more importantly, that these people were human beings. And they are susceptible to all of the problems that the rest of us are, but they can dress it up better than we can.