probably useless storming into a binge thread 11 hours late but we just watched the first episode and i'm super-impressed by john lithgow's spot-on churchill impression through ~actual acting~ and not just gimmickry. i can't imagine what it's like for a showrunner to take an established actor with an already phenomenal legacy and give them something entirely new that will propel their stature even further.
I've heard they're planning to do SIX seasons, to cover the whole reign. Which...holy shit I'm in if it's going to be like this.
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 6 November 2016 07:39 (eleven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
and with their intended focus on peripheral members of the monarchy it's easy to see how they'll fill it. the scope for quality drama is mind-blowing.
― Autumn Almanac, Sunday, 6 November 2016 08:13 (seven years ago) link
yeah definitely
I really enjoy lithgow as churchill too. I also enjoy them utilizing churchill in his second prime-ministership as much as they do; post-stroke churchill is not as often shown or used in drama & it is quite fascinating to see that "fading glory" portrayed by such a good actor
i didn't expect there to be as much use of peripheral characters - it definitely helps paint the picture more fully
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 6 November 2016 15:31 (seven years ago) link
claire foy looks so uncannily like a close friend of my mum's did when younger that i don't know how to end this post
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2016 15:55 (seven years ago) link
i already said this on the wolf hall thread but :0
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2016 15:56 (seven years ago) link
the queen in her old age reminds me of my grandma, and young Lizzy reminds me of my Mumit's weird all round
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 6 November 2016 19:55 (seven years ago) link
capt peter townshend also reminds me of someone i know quite well
plus queen mary (of teck, george vi's mum, with the grey curls) uses the same asthma inhaler as i did as a kid! (tho she has a fancy mouthpiece also)
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2016 20:12 (seven years ago) link
lol matt smith's face when the the plane lands after his flying lesson (which i just this second watched) is SOOOO DOCTOR WHOOO
so far i haven't mind him his as philip, but he should stay away from airmen's leather helmets
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2016 20:15 (seven years ago) link
that first scene of his flying lesson with the deadstick landing is a good example of why I like this show. In a Downton setting there would have been HIGH DRAMA and pleading for the engine to be turned back on and some kind of STAKES and a lot of music
But no
Two chill dudes just kill the engine, chat for a bit, and then deadstick land the plane in a field and it's cool af
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 6 November 2016 20:23 (seven years ago) link
yes -- except prince philip has turned into doctor who during the flight :)
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2016 20:27 (seven years ago) link
this is paywalled only but well worth it on the fog: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n19/neal-ascherson/brown-goo-like-marmite
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2016 20:28 (seven years ago) link
hmmm, there doesn't seem to be any "yas queen" memes featuring Claire Foy yet. Somebody's asleep at the wheel
― Number None, Sunday, 6 November 2016 20:55 (seven years ago) link
Blimey, some of the fog stuff is like Threads.
― trishyb, Monday, 7 November 2016 15:55 (seven years ago) link
Halfway through ep 9, one more to go
Every time Phillip disappoints Lizzy I think back to that promise he made to King George that he would stand by her & i get really mad. then I think how incredibly strong she must have been to weather so much without the steadfast support she should have had from him & it makes her a little bit more impressive in my eyes
Envying the Queen Mum's Scottish castle
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 8 November 2016 18:53 (seven years ago) link
Still, up against the wall with the lot of them, Bolsheviks had the right idea etc.
― The Doug Walters of Crime (Tom D.), Tuesday, 8 November 2016 18:55 (seven years ago) link
yeah I'm not going to go subscribing to Women's Weekly anytime soon
it just gives me an appreciation for the weird difficulties of a job that basically asks you to do nothing
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 8 November 2016 19:16 (seven years ago) link
Yeah, I do feel for Phil. He has no job and no real purpose. Maybe he thought he would be doing a lot of the work, or that she would at least share more with him, come to him for advice, that kind of thing? I suppose neither of them realised she'd be thrown into it so soon.
― trishyb, Tuesday, 8 November 2016 19:55 (seven years ago) link
Although I guess that's what all that horse-stud business is about: him having no real job any more, now that he's done his job by her.
― trishyb, Tuesday, 8 November 2016 19:56 (seven years ago) link
idk
they'd been prepping her for queen her whole life, idk what Phil thought would happen
i mean, i'm sympathetic to an extent- it's obv a very unforgiving job esp for surrounding family. but he just seems so stubbornly petulant & not very empathetic to the inherent loneliness she's dealing with
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 8 November 2016 20:16 (seven years ago) link
Jared Harris is so good. Bloody love him after this and Mad Men, and fuck it, I'll even take that accent in the Expanse too.
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 8 November 2016 20:43 (seven years ago) link
yeah he is A+ perfect in this
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 8 November 2016 20:55 (seven years ago) link
i'd love a prequel season showing his wartime years, the family in london after the blitz, etc
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 8 November 2016 20:56 (seven years ago) link
It's all so delicately done, reminds me a bit of the early golden british drama era, the Brideshead Revisiteds, very far from the deluge of period fluff in the wake of Downton Abbey
― abcfsk, Tuesday, 8 November 2016 21:00 (seven years ago) link
otm
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 8 November 2016 21:29 (seven years ago) link
idk what Phil thought would happen
I think he thought that it would be more of a partnership, like Churchill and his wife. He obviously has plenty of good ideas - like televising the coronation.
― trishyb, Tuesday, 8 November 2016 22:43 (seven years ago) link
true
i just hate the petulant absenteeism & carousing
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 8 November 2016 23:13 (seven years ago) link
"i'd love a prequel season showing his wartime years, the family in london after the blitz, etc"
A bunch of priv Naziphiles waiting for their government to stop this nonsense and sue for peace might not cut it as a worldwide hit netflix series tbh. I wish next time Netflix have a spare 100m and loads of good actors, they will do a House of Plantagenet epic or something.
― calzino, Wednesday, 9 November 2016 00:20 (seven years ago) link
Seems the spat on the Australia tour in front of the film crew did actually happen
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/it-happens-even-in-royal-marriages-20110927-1kvi8.html
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 10 November 2016 06:49 (seven years ago) link
I said this on the Westworld thread already but:
Game of Thrones credit sequence: mechanical mapworld comes into being before your eyes.
Vinyl credit sequence: an LP comes liquidly into being before your eyes.
Westworld credit sequence: various biobots come liquidly into being before your eyes.
The Crown credit sequence: molten metal liquidly becomes a crown before your eyes.
I think we've found the MMteens' dominant visual cliché. It's the new teal & orange.
― marzipandemonium (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 14 November 2016 13:55 (seven years ago) link
Oh and btw ilx hath infected my brain so thoroughly that at the beginning of E3 all I could think was YES! THERE ARE, INDEED, MOTHERFUCKING CORGIS.
― marzipandemonium (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 14 November 2016 13:56 (seven years ago) link
:D
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 14 November 2016 16:15 (seven years ago) link
the Corgis just turned up though. I wanted an origin story
― Number None, Monday, 14 November 2016 19:00 (seven years ago) link
I finished the final ep last night
A+, looking forward to more in the future if it's more of this calibre of storytelling.
The stuff between Lizzy & Margaret in ep10 is so sad & kinda gutwrenching to watch it play out even when you know what's coming. Actress who plays margaret is so good
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 14 November 2016 19:08 (seven years ago) link
do they explain the awful hats?
Jared Harris currently brilliant in Certain Women btw
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Monday, 14 November 2016 19:22 (seven years ago) link
no hat explanation sry morbs
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 14 November 2016 21:07 (seven years ago) link
Daredevil has the same opening sequence design too.
― Immediate Follower (NA), Wednesday, 16 November 2016 03:29 (seven years ago) link
matt smith should play frankenstein's monster in something. he looks like frankenstein's monster.
― na (NA), Wednesday, 16 November 2016 17:57 (seven years ago) link
i will get back to this soon. thanks, trump!
― scott seward, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 18:21 (seven years ago) link
apropos of nothing I am really into the Queen + land rover + headscarf + gumboots look, it's a real winner for me
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 16 November 2016 19:35 (seven years ago) link
the woman clare foy reminds me of also rocked that look -- well, not the land rover, she had a SHOOTING BRAKE instead
or actually one of those half-timbered morris minor travellers full of smelly king charles spaniels
http://www.classicandsportscar.ltd.uk/images_catalogue/large/morris-minor-traveller_17586.jpg
― mark s, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 19:44 (seven years ago) link
watched this last weekend (except for episode one which my wife had already watched), certainly addictive. matt smith is great as philip in this, since I only ever think of him as an ancient horrible racist monster. princess margaret is much too pretty in this compared to her real life self.
― akm, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 22:37 (seven years ago) link
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/80/d6/4f/80d64f2c25860c419df4a01024e5b8c0.jpg
― mark s, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 22:45 (seven years ago) link
xp really? i always thought margaret was v beautiful as a young lady
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 16 November 2016 22:59 (seven years ago) link
Like a good looking version of the Queen.
― The Doug Walters of Crime (Tom D.), Wednesday, 16 November 2016 23:09 (seven years ago) link
p much yeah
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 16 November 2016 23:12 (seven years ago) link
looking thru her pix on GiS she's one of those people who just looks really -- almost unrecognisably --- different in different photos, at least until she worked out her glam mojo in the 60s
― mark s, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 23:14 (seven years ago) link
Margaret was royal family attractive. Vanessa Kirby is attractive attractive
― Number None, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 23:16 (seven years ago) link
from either eavesdropping on some misspeak from my mum or something misheard when I was a kid, for most of my adult life I was convinced she had an affair with Pete Townsend.
― calzino, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 23:34 (seven years ago) link
haha
― akm, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 23:57 (seven years ago) link
anyway margaret def best 'character' here, love it when she takes over while queeney is away and just says whatever the fuck she wants
also, next series needs more dog
― akm, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 23:58 (seven years ago) link
best character is elizabeth, forzen at the centre dissolving herself in duty; margaret is the most fun character
― mark s, Thursday, 17 November 2016 00:00 (seven years ago) link
spoilers* but GHOST DIANA klaxon!!!¡¡¡!!! 📣💥🔊
*(i haven't been watching recent seasons, i gleaned this from twitter)
― mark s, Sunday, 19 November 2023 10:54 (ten months ago) link
It seems to have united the critics…. https://i.imgur.com/2GcweDg.jpg
― Dr Drudge (Bob Six), Sunday, 19 November 2023 13:12 (ten months ago) link
To be fair, her nickname had an obvious homophone. That's some pretty heavy-handed foreshadowing; it bespeaks laziness in the writers' room.
― Oh I believe in Yetis' Day (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 19 November 2023 16:01 (ten months ago) link
It's pretty poor but not noticeably worse than any of the other series after the first two or three (gut says it's fine through to the 60s but takes a downturn pretty much as soon as the 70s hit).
Then again, it's still country miles better than the Spencer film, and Kristen Stewart got all kinds of awards nominations for that. That also featured royal ghosts lecturing people as a key plot point.
― Hello I'm shitty gatsworth (aldo), Sunday, 19 November 2023 16:32 (ten months ago) link
I've already said this, but the name "Fflyn" was new to me. I have been helpfully educated on the linguistic rationale (hat tip to James Redd) but I am still processing that info.
― Oh I believe in Yetis' Day (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 19 November 2023 17:02 (ten months ago) link
i hadn’t caught up on s5 & s6 until now halfway thru s5there is def something a bit boring about this season i agree i think staunton is great as the Queen but i am struggling to get with McNulty as Charles, he’s not nearly pompous & insecure enough, too confidentdebicki is good as diana but i ageee w comments upthread that its mostly mannerisms & a bit one-note i really love lesley manville as margaret, and casting Timothy Dalton as Group Captain Wotsisface in s5e4 was such a lovely touch
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 21 January 2024 02:41 (eight months ago) link
Mohamed al-Fayed's episode was maybe the best episode of S5, which is kind of indicative of the existential crisis this show had in its last two seasons. the writers' choices of focus were probably for the better, because I'm not sure I enjoyed any episode focused on the Queen in S5 or S6
― Vinnie, Sunday, 21 January 2024 14:18 (eight months ago) link
yeah agree i liked that one a lotdid the thing imo crown does best, weaving two time periods together idk what it is about s5 but i’m honestly so bored by their dramatization of the diana of it all at this pointlike she’d literally tell a teatowel how miserable she is and wants a divorce then next thing moping to her therapist like oh the queens dismissal was “so final” like omg stfuuuuuup go wear a fucking bikini and be divorced PLEASE
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 22 January 2024 03:39 (eight months ago) link
If she hadnt died she'd have broken up with Dodi like a week later whats a bet.
By the time it got to the Wills and Harry stuff I completely lost interest.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, 22 January 2024 05:19 (eight months ago) link
lol yeah probably. i just finished s5, so now i begin the long march thru s6 sidebar: queen now 100% reminding me pf my dear departed nan, who had almost the same hairdo, wore the same wool skirts & cardigans every day of her life, never saw her in a single pair of trousers
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 22 January 2024 05:29 (eight months ago) link
did the thing imo crown does best, weaving two time periods together
For me the other thing The Crown does best is telling me things about British history, and specifically the monarchy, that I didn't already know. The only episode in the last two seasons that did that was the one about Mohamed al-Fayed.
― trishyb, Monday, 22 January 2024 09:12 (eight months ago) link
tired: queen as a child tricked* into a nazi salutewired: queen as an old lady tricked into wearing nu-metal shorts
this gives me a handy bar for the remainder of this show to fall below, at last i can start watching s5 & then s6
*it's why she hates her uncle, bcz either it's a public shame (shows her as she isn't) or a public revelation (shows her as she actually is)** **either way is an unwanted obstacle
― mark s, Monday, 22 January 2024 10:56 (eight months ago) link
yeah the second half of the final season was completely limp and pointless, but I think that may simply be because I remember all of it happening in real time
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Monday, 22 January 2024 15:35 (eight months ago) link
yeah i think thats true also
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 22 January 2024 15:40 (eight months ago) link
ok well into deathmarch to the end of s6 still such a boring slogafter everything they did w the first 4 seasons its like they were just, fuckit we’ve go nothing here’s diana staring up under her fringe for 20 hours like no history detours really at all except the mohammed fayed ep in s5 the speculative fiction of dodi & diana’s final hours together was a bit much for me, i mean maybe that is what happened idki’m only on ep5 cannot even begin to imagine the depths of boredom yet to be excavated here weeeee zzzz
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 29 January 2024 02:23 (seven months ago) link
The William & Catherine and William & Harry stuff is yes, even more boring. The Princess Margaret episode was good though.
― nate woolls, Monday, 29 January 2024 02:55 (seven months ago) link
good to know thx
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 29 January 2024 03:04 (seven months ago) link
the speculative fiction of dodi & diana’s final hours together was a bit much for me, i mean maybe that is what happened idk
ya this was bad, also there's an entirely made up plotline about how Kate's mother basically engineered her daughter and William getting together from even before their time at St Andrews. i mean sure, this show is fictionalised, but that whole arc seemed unnecessarily mean-spirited
didn't even distract from how boring the whole season was, it was def a struggle to finish
― Roz, Monday, 29 January 2024 08:05 (seven months ago) link
yeah they really struggle to make the second half of S6 interesting. just little there work with, I suppose. I preferred the Diana episodes even if I knew a lot of the story
― Vinnie, Monday, 29 January 2024 19:33 (seven months ago) link
this back half feels so speculative as to beggar belief, like beyond fictionalizing and into “we have now decided to just invent new characters we are calling The Royals”Charles going off into the scottish highlands to wail abt Dianas death seemed insanely fabulist, like ok what are we actually doing here and ghost Dianas convo w the queenlmao ok whut
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 29 January 2024 20:44 (seven months ago) link
wait this sounds good tho, all historical reconstruction should include ghosts, cf hamlet etc
― mark s, Monday, 29 January 2024 20:47 (seven months ago) link
to affirm my claim i found a fine portrait of the real actual historical hamlet aka "amblett"
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Amblett_Hamlet.jpg/800px-Amblett_Hamlet.jpg
― mark s, Monday, 29 January 2024 20:50 (seven months ago) link
FWIW the ghosts didn't bother me nearly as much as the boring shit
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Monday, 29 January 2024 22:34 (seven months ago) link
true, the boring shit is definitely the worst aspect
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 29 January 2024 22:54 (seven months ago) link
fiiiiiinallly finished this trudge through the treacle of s6high point: really liked the episode about Margaret, thought it showed their relationship as sisters quite nicely. i didn’t know she had burned her feet, v awful i liked all the scenes btw William & the Queen, they have good chemistry in their scenes togethercamilla puffing on a cig while tending to the tomato plants was v good harry’s nazi uniform moment lol ugh the rest of it was decidedly boring/mid and i am glad its over should have stopped at s4 tbh
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 18 February 2024 01:29 (seven months ago) link
OH and the penitence prayer scene for Chuck & Camilla was pretty great imo
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 18 February 2024 01:38 (seven months ago) link