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
yeah elizabeth for me is the best character; rmde @ margaret & phillip with their endless "wants" & "needs" worse than actual corgis imo (/jk)
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 17 November 2016 02:06 (seven years ago) link
maybe it's just the older sister in me that sympathizes with lizzy
it's fucking hard work being the square responsible one!
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 17 November 2016 02:08 (seven years ago) link
this is v good but i have to remind myself what kind of life i'm seeing, what's being dramatized. lethal smog has the same weight as whether philip has enough to do day to day.
― goole, Thursday, 17 November 2016 17:06 (seven years ago) link
yeah I'm a bit torn between thinking ^that is kind of the point of the series and wondering if I should really be spending hours contemplating said basically appalling point. In TV drama terms though, so far my only real complaint is that Edward is no fun as a villain, he's just really contemptible and joyless to spend time with.
― rob, Thursday, 17 November 2016 18:07 (seven years ago) link
he isn't the villain, he's the warning
― mark s, Thursday, 17 November 2016 18:09 (seven years ago) link
I had a feeling "villain" might be objected to, and I don't disagree about his importance to the show's central idea of the function of the monarchy. Maybe it's the actor? I stand by "joyless to spend time with" so when he's central to an episode I find them a bit more of a slog (but I'm only halfway through in case that matters).
― rob, Thursday, 17 November 2016 18:14 (seven years ago) link
as an american i shd probably look into what duties the monarch has. the 'heavy hangs the crown' type stuff between harris and foy is the show's strongest, but again i'm like... why. why is it like this.
― goole, Thursday, 17 November 2016 18:15 (seven years ago) link
It seemed like that to them. At the time.
Not an expert on this by any means but it seems like in 195whatever they still had a huge hangover from empire and from, of course, the wars, where they felt the idea of the steady "leadership" of a dutiful self-effacing monarch made a bit more sense.
As they do less and less of consequence nowadays, they're just reality-show-type celebrities given stilts by history, so it seems silly to us now. But even non-royal britishes in 1952ish might well have regarded the persons and fates of individual royals as a sort of proxy for the national identity, in the way perhaps that we regard sports stars. To what extent is Cleveland's fate entwined with LeBron's? It isn't, except for the person who feels that it is.
― marzipandemonium (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 17 November 2016 18:25 (seven years ago) link
yes, the series is basically about duty vs the call of modernity (which is already super-unusual, i can't actually think of another drama that's done this in the present-day era)
my feeling (having watched it all) is that it's surprsingly harsh on ppl who don't usually get harshed on (churchill, for one): but yes, it is entirely (and deliberately) told from inside the buck house bubble
i suspect if it had tried to make much of the view from outdside, it would actually probably sentimentalise both
i also suspect that it will get less rigorous as it approaches the present
― mark s, Thursday, 17 November 2016 18:26 (seven years ago) link
my favoutite exchange was a burn from queen mary (of teck, aka edward/george's mum) pointing out that philip's family (the schleswig-holstein-sonderburg-glücksburgs) are jumped up parvenus, whose line did not -- of course -- go back a thousand years
it was just to win a minor family argument but she was irritated
― mark s, Thursday, 17 November 2016 18:30 (seven years ago) link
From the perspective of now, the royals who basically said "hey, we're rich and we have basically nothing to do, so let's just party and fuck" are actually sort of on the right side of history. The ones who thought they had a moral obligation to lead, set a good example, and carefully read government documents actually come off looking sorta like chumps. Because a parliamentary government can run fine without them (in fact, most do).
But just like we take the internal logic of a show seriously when we watch "The Tudors" or "Wolf Hall" or "Man for All Seasons" or, heck, "Game of Thrones," to enjoy "The Crown" requires inhabiting, however temporarily, its point of view.
That said, "The Crown" might be made more exciting with tits 'n' dragons.
― marzipandemonium (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 17 November 2016 18:37 (seven years ago) link
i think the approach will make it v interesting in later seasons - all of the things that Elizabeth has to give up, repress, compromise & reject entirely now will all become (for her) depressingly moot as her role as queen becomes more & more meaningless
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 17 November 2016 18:40 (seven years 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