With The Crown Season 6 Part 1 now streaming on Netflix, the reviews are pouring for the first four episodes that tackle the history-making death of Princess Diana whose likeness is amazingly captured by Elizabeth Debicki in a casting decision for the ages.
However, it’s the handling of the aftermath of Diana’s death that is dividing critics. The Crown made the risky creative choice of having Diana appear to her family after death. While some critics found the “Ghost Diana” moments powerful, others did not. (Although, they also had other issues with the show besides treating Diana like Obi-Wan Kenobi telling Luke to use The Force.)
Here’s what the first batch of positive reviews are saying:
Kimberly Ricci, Uproxx:
What transpires is obviously sad at times, but the delivery is stunning. Diana’s strength shines through while The Crown shows how she coped with the ridiculous circumstances of her life after the palace. It’s also, as weird as this sounds, nice to spend some (virtual) time with a member of royalty who was — to be blunt — not a self-involved a-hole. After all, there’s a reason why she was called “The People’s Princess.” Like many of you, I also recall where I was when news coverage of that deadly accident in a Parisian tunnel hit. This was one of those history-altering moments, like how you’ll always remember what you were doing when the 9/11 attacks began or when MAGAs started scaling the sides of the Capitol steps.
Aramide Tinubu, Variety:
Generations of people know that Princess Diana and her friend, Dodi Al-Fayed, were killed in a car crash in the early morning hours of Aug. 31, 1997. It is what occurred in the weeks prior that has remained hazy. Morgan doesn’t offer a whirlwind romance but a depiction of a comforting friendship that had only started to blossom and was exacerbated by public perception and familial obligation. In humanizing the two in life and in death (there are no “ghosts” here), juxtaposed against the reigning monarch’s stoicism and commitment to grating tradition, the show invites the audience to consider the choices made by the British royal family, which have contributed to its relic-like state. With this devastating first section of its final chapter, Netflix’s crown jewel bids farewell to an icon, and retakes its throne.
Kelly Lawler, USA Today:
The Season 5 cast returns with more slightly overwritten speeches and quivering upper lips, and they’re all passable and fine, but it’s Debicki’s show, and everyone else is just along for the ride. The actress rises to the occasion, imbuing her version of the People’s Princess with a slightly airy naïveté, but always splendidly grounding her emotional scenes.
Jackson McHenry, Vulture:
Perhaps because he’s retrodding familiar ground, [Peter] Morgan takes one big swing: Having Diana’s character, as well as Dodi’s in one scene, appear before the other figures in their lives for one last conversation. The scenes are weird, moving, and too neat all simultaneously. It’s almost Catholic, with Dodi and Diana as saintly figures providing everyone a little bit of absolution as they confess their transgressions, each character seeing a reflection of their own anxieties about the pair rather than the people themselves. That, in turn, reminds you of all those photographs. Everyone takes their piece of this woman, their claim to know her. But all those facets, those glimpses, surround an unknown whole.
And here are the other reviews that were not loving Ghost Diana. Notably, the majority of the negative reactions came from across the pond, but there were American outlets that were not feeling the first half of The Crown Season 6.
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian:
Beyond all its formal failures, late-period Crown is also impossibly hamstrung by being set well within living memory. Even if there were anything to engage with, the memories and consequent questions that crowd into the viewer’s mind at every stage would make it impossible. Was Charles really so astute about what her death would mean, so quickly? It seems unlikely, from everything we knew then, and the mountains we have learned since. And we know Prince Philip didn’t murmur to Harry an explanation of the crowd’s behaviour during the funeral procession (“They’re not crying for her. They’re crying for you”) because we were, effectively, there. We would have seen it. The suspension of disbelief can never be established. Ghost Diana dances among ruins.
Nick Hilton, The Independent:
While the shadow of death can offer creative tension, it also makes The Crown feel like an ailing project. “You’ve taught us what it means to be British,” the ghost of Princess Diana tells the Queen (yes, you read that correctly). And The Crown, similarly, has taught the world what it meant to be British, in the 20th century. But it has also run out of road – run out of history to retread – and, on its last legs, has less to say than ever, about what it means to be British now.
Anita Singh, The Telegraph:
There are six more episodes to go. The show may redeem itself dramatically by widening the scope – it will cover William and Kate’s early relationship, the death of Princess Margaret and the wedding of the now King and Queen. Perhaps the Queen will be redeemed and reach a new understanding with Charles. But releasing these four instalments alone is an error, and the fourth (titled Aftermath) is the weakest of the lot. It ends on a note so bizarre that I won’t reveal it here, for fear of spoiling the effect. If you make it that far, you’ll be glad of the laugh.
Ben Travers, IndieWire:
Such overreaching, such redundancy, such ghastly plotting overwhelms the clean, handsome staging and costumed elegance “The Crown” has leaned on for years. (Though the spectacle is less striking in Season 6. Scenes feel cramped and constricted, which would be fitting for the oft-trapped Diana, but the claustrophobic framings also restrict the rest of the characters.) Perhaps there’s an argument to be made that as the Royal family fell out of favor, as Elizabeth’s influence shrank in favor of the future king’s, the series had to shift focus, as well; to downplay the Queen as a way to convey the world passing her by. I don’t know if I buy it, and the heavy-handed metaphor driving Season 5’s finale already covered as much anyway, but I do know this: Talking to the dead, even in a palace, is still a cheap trick.
The Crown Season 6 Part 1 is now streaming on Netflix.