The Crown (season 4) – 8

I can’t gainsay the quality of the acting and the production, but the ten episodes of Season 4 left an uneven impression. Each episode was its own self-contained story. Those that mixed British politics with Royal Family matters–such as the superb finale–were deeply rewarding. Those that focused on the Royals’ dysfunction–such as Princess Margaret’s search for meaning in her life–were less so. Tobias Menzies’ Prince Philip got to play the sane one–quite a switch from his predecessor in the early years who was a total cad; but all the characters were rather one-dimensional. Olivia Colman’s Queen Elizabeth confused me: she could be quite sensitive one moment, then unaccountably brusque and rude the next. How hard it must be to inject flesh and blood into someone we know as the picture on a postage stamp! The other character worth noting was Gillian Anderson’s Margaret Thatcher. She struck me as a caricature, but what do I know?