The Crown
Thanks to a £100 million budget and nearly half a million viewers during the opening weekend only, Netflix produced another great success with the original TV series "The Crown". They used the fascinating story of the Royal Family, that is able to charm and entertain not only the British, but also the rest of Europe and the American audiences (as the success of the drama Downtown Abbey has shown).
It's quite surprising that they made a biopic about a living monarch, and even more astonishing the fact that they showed private problems such as the crisis between Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, or the scandalous relationship between Princess Margaret and the Group Captain Peter Townsend.
The TV series covers a period of time that goes from 1947, year of the wedding between Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, up to 1955, with Anthony Eden as Prime Minister.
I particularly enjoyed the way they portrayed Elizabeth as Queen. We can witness the development of her character from a young and disoriented woman, crushed by the early death of her father, to a Queen that struggles to get out of her role, doing whatever she can to keep up the name of the Windsor family. Even if her behavior has a big, not positive, impact on her marriage with Prince Philip.
We don't see a Queen too sure of herself. We can observe a fragile person that got, all of a sudden, the weight of a country on her shoulders and that keeps looking for advice from her closest and most trusted people: her mother and the Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
The next big narrative strand is the one involving Princess Margaret and her love story with Peter Townsend. The two made the relationship official after the death of King George VI, without the approval of Queen Mother.
It is a complicated relationship. According to the religious rules of the time, the Princess couldn't get married to a divorced man while the ex-spouse was still alive. The story repeats itself over and over again. In fact, King Edward VIII, brother and predecessor of King George VI, abdicated to marry the love of his life, the American twice divorced Wallis Simpson.
We can make a connection with our present time as well, after hearing the news of the relationship between Prince Harry and Canadian actress Meghan Markle, who divorced from Trevor Engelson in 2013.
In a not so peaceful climate for the Royal family, in which the U.K. population is divided in two between those who wants to abolish the monarchy and those who wants to keep it, this TV series gives us a glimpse of the life of one of the most famous family in the world.
The Crown season two is expected to be released next year and it should cover the time from 1955 to 1965. Peter Morgan, the show's writer, planned six seasons, to go through the life of the monarch without missing any detail.
It's quite surprising that they made a biopic about a living monarch, and even more astonishing the fact that they showed private problems such as the crisis between Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, or the scandalous relationship between Princess Margaret and the Group Captain Peter Townsend.
The TV series covers a period of time that goes from 1947, year of the wedding between Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, up to 1955, with Anthony Eden as Prime Minister.
We don't see a Queen too sure of herself. We can observe a fragile person that got, all of a sudden, the weight of a country on her shoulders and that keeps looking for advice from her closest and most trusted people: her mother and the Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
The next big narrative strand is the one involving Princess Margaret and her love story with Peter Townsend. The two made the relationship official after the death of King George VI, without the approval of Queen Mother.
It is a complicated relationship. According to the religious rules of the time, the Princess couldn't get married to a divorced man while the ex-spouse was still alive. The story repeats itself over and over again. In fact, King Edward VIII, brother and predecessor of King George VI, abdicated to marry the love of his life, the American twice divorced Wallis Simpson.
In a not so peaceful climate for the Royal family, in which the U.K. population is divided in two between those who wants to abolish the monarchy and those who wants to keep it, this TV series gives us a glimpse of the life of one of the most famous family in the world.
The Crown season two is expected to be released next year and it should cover the time from 1955 to 1965. Peter Morgan, the show's writer, planned six seasons, to go through the life of the monarch without missing any detail.
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