But Will There Be Corgis? Thread Where We Discuss Netflix's THE CROWN

sic - Hawkey gets the Richard Roxburgh treatment & it is v chef’s kiss

I noted you saying so upthread, yes, that's 30% of my interest!

btw total sidebar on the Hawke tip but you might somewhat enjoy the Angus Sampson / Leigh Whannell collabo film The Mule, a drug smuggling comedy set across the time the '83 America's Cup race is on TV

maybe "does prince charles read novels (apart from harry potter)?" can be my debut quora query

my alg there is already totally fucked for no reason i can discern, it will at least drag it away from dumb questions abt chernobyl

xpost oh hell yes, i will investigate! love both those guys!

I watched the Australian episode and: 30% good job, 63% lol at faking Australia*, but holy shit is this terrible writing. Does Morgan always do the all-exposition all-the-time dialogue?

QUEEN: "As you know, the Australian Prime Minister is an ex-unionist who believes it is time for a republic. Perhaps this trip will win hearts and minds among the colonies."

AUSSIE PM: "As you know, [GOOGLE NAME OF A SECOND AUSTRALIAN LATER, IF YOU HAVE TIME BEFORE FLYING TO VIENNA TO VISIT YOUR FIVE PRINCE AND PRINCESS CHILDREN. LEAVE BLANK OTHERWISE], I reckon it's past time we became a republic. This jug-eared bastard might turn the tide for us by parading around the joint."

QUEEN: "One hears that she is becoming popular with the heathens whom one desires to continue owning."

CHARLES: "You're becoming bloody popular by clinging to that baby!"

DIANA: "Maybe I'm becoming popular BECAUSE I'm clinging to that baby, who is my son. And yours!"

AUSSIE PM: "As you know, you jug-eared bastard, I reckon we ought to become a republic. But that woman has become bloody popular parading around the joint. Have a beer, I know you must also possess a growing jealousy toward her that will escalate in future episodes."

* the CGI'd Sydney Opera House was hilairs: characters in the foreground in focus, crowd of thousands in background out of focus, enormous building behind the crowd somehow magically in focus again. I guess they just went with the first result on Shutterstock?

prob not the best idea to watch that one episode & nothing else? lmao

a lot of the dialogue is expositiony bc they dont assume the audience knows or remembers much of anything
i think maybe also bc overall timeline for the show is pretty truncated

but it is honestly not an impediment to enjoyment of the show or at least not as big of a deal as you make it out to be

Until the Falklands War, Gillian Anderson, sorry, is just awful. I know she's playing a caricature, but the Thatcher I've watched in dozens of videos and read about wasn't this dry plank: she knew how to flirt and charm even if the queen paralyzed her.

This is a poor SNL parody.

how dare you use those words to describe Thatcher

the drier the better i say

she knew how to flirt and charm even if the queen paralyzed her

Lol, also greatly enjoyed Bob Hawke and the mention of his status as a former Guinness Book of Records holder for skulling a yard of ale, which iirc he was doing in public up until his death?

Without waving away every valid thing you wrote -- everything, by my estimation -- dramatically we have to understand why Thatcher worked, in the same way Reagan did, and, maybe I'm the American responding to her secondhand through YouTube, bios, and the news after 1987 (i.e. when I came of age), but, even acknowledging her problem with women, the Anderson take is TOO self-conscious.

"everything, by my estimation" = all valid

like, Anderson's Thatcher comes off as a Greer Garson rendition of Margaret Thatcher, yet what I've seen Thatcher was rather good at constructing this role.

I think perhaps the producers were wary of being seen to soften her image, certainly there’s a big swathe of people even just in the UK who like/are interested in the royals but despise Thatcher to this day. Not sure if you’ve seen the coverage over here (no reason why you should, really), but tons of Tories are having their piss boiled over it because they think the portrayal is too unsympathetic. Again, though, I take your point but I think you are focusing on the wrong reasons why she won people over - her image was a part of it, but it was her hardness and decisiveness that a certain type of person responded most to.

lol I'm communicating poorly. Until the Falklands episodes, her hardness is laughable -- a goon show caricature. And, yes, I know, many will say YES THAT'S HOW SHE CAME OFF but Gillian Anderson comes off as a person who's studied what people wrote about Thatcher. I understand the meticulousness with which Thatcher constructed her poshness, but certainly in America Thatcher, like Reagan, came off as a thorough Gatsby-esque fabrication; the seams didn't show.

i heard a podcast interview w the creator & he said Anderson often takes many months/years to develop a character

ie the voice she did as Thatcher was noticeably much improved that in post production she volunteered to do some ADR on her initial episodes

i think she grew into her performance overall as the season progressed

anderson's thatcher is great. the harshness and fragility, the self-consciousness that hides behind self-righteousness, this is not just a performance of a human being but a whole economic and moral outlook. she's playing thatcherism.

the performances are tremendous this season. and of all of them, helena bonham carter is the best.

charles wins it for me, lizzy close second

they're all very good. i find myself feeling real anger toward him due to his cowardice and selfishness.

emma corrin's diana also incredible. very understated, really.

I wonder if it helps that she wasn't around for this when it was happening.

Unfortunately people of my age remember it too well.

I realize I've never heard Charles speak a single sentence, and I've grown up with him.

Is that accent real?

legit

Lol, also greatly enjoyed Bob Hawke and the mention of his status as a former Guinness Book of Records holder for skulling a yard of ale, which iirc he was doing in public up until his death?

He set the Guinness Record for a yard as a 26-year-old Rhodes scholar at Oxford in 1955, quit booze flat for his entire parliamentary career (1980-91, set a zero emissions by 1995 target before getting knifed out), and returned to it gradually afterward. He would publicly skull a glass deep into his eighties to entertain randos, but just with regular schooners (375ml), not the yard glass he'd made his name with (1400ml / 2.5 pints / 91oz?).

Here he is being handed a cup at the cricket and taking it to the dome in ten, aged 82 or so:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2skct9

anderson's thatcher is great. the harshness and fragility, the self-consciousness that hides behind self-righteousness, this is not just a performance of a human being but a whole economic and moral outlook. she's playing thatcherism.

― treeship.,

An excellent description of the scriptwriters and director's intentions.

behold Prince Chuck in all of his warm-blancmange glory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg_fib2gQaU

the scriptwriters and director's intentions.

The scriptwriter has been dating Anderson since 2016, incidentally (he split from his princess wife unrelatedly in 2014).

so is the critique that the performance is heavy-handed?

Interestingly GA spent her much of her childhood in England and left around the same time Thatcher won her first general election. She didn’t come back to live until 2002. I don’t know what that has to do with anything, really.

Something that really struck me watching this season was how POC are represented. Beyond the Commonwealth Heads of Government, I don’t recall very many POC at all in the episodes set in England - the occasional soldier maybe. Nobody in the Fagan episode, or am I misremembering? Anyway, then when Diana visits New York and there’s a focus on HIV/AIDS and poverty there, the vast majority of extras and minor characters are black. It was really striking and seemed like a rather muddled point was being made, or that somebody decided to make England (as a country rather than the royal family’s obviously very white circle) a stark contrast on purpose to make a point. Or was it just out of ignorance of how multiethnic the UK, particularly its cities, were in the period this season is set? I dunno, I’m still trying to decide why the NYC episode jumped out at me for that reason. But it sits a bit uncomfortably with me.

One problem GA faces is that the script demands that everything she says has to explain current events, history, Thatcher's character, background etc and how it influences her political philosophy. So whether it's an interview with the Queen or a chat with her daughter in the kitchen, she's given these paragraphs of text to get across as if she's delivering a lecture, so the audience understands. It's true of most characters tbh; the writers really believe in telling rather than showing.

Morgan gives one writer one co-write credit on one episode out of ten; I'm gonna assume that that is his style after all.

def not sure how i feel abt Gillian Anderson's portrayal of Maggie, i think is great but somehow does not fit but maybe id the point - was fascinating to watch tho - someone (here, elswhere?) said it made them think of a drag queen's version which yes, but, yeah i can't pin down how i feel abt it

did appreciate some of the music endings, Linton Kwesi Johnson'd Inglan' Is a Bitch, The (English) Beat, Stand Down Margaret. Even made me remember for first time in decades the Exploited Let's Start a War (Said Maggie One Day)

So assume Charles & Camilla must be unhappy with the new season as getting attacked by fans of the show anew https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adeonibada/season-the-crown-trolling-camilla-prince-charles?ref=bfnsplash

seeing Dominic West is being mentioned as Charles for next two seasons which makes no sense to me

Charles comes across as a massive prick throughout, I’d be raging if I was him.

Prince Edward's "that was impressively cunty" was probably my favorite line delivery of the season so far.

The problem with Anderson is that her's is more of an impression than a performance, there's no air in it. O'Conner's performance of Charles suffers similarly but not to the same extent. They both solely use a particular strained register that both Maggie and Charlie do have but they don't only speak and move in that register, as you can see from the C&D interview just posted. It's near impossible to flesh a character out tho given the either didactic or purely expositional dialogue.

hers, damn.

Prince Edward's "that was impressively cunty" was probably my favorite line delivery of the season so far.

Hilarious, and felt deeply true somehow.

I'd deleted season 1 after watching 10 minutes and could not see myself watching a full season of the royals, then a friend begged me to find season 2 for her so, bored started watching it, went back to 1, and been watching avidly ever since tho still surprised.

yeah it’s weird, prior to this show existing I never would have pictured myself being SUPER into this show

i think the way it handles history + people, plus the ongoing exploration of “the crown” as concept & as impediment to anyone behaving remotely like a human

has a lot of unexpected layers that i am v much enjoying

O'Connor has had many wonderful moments; his performance has grown on me. That moment at the window when Elizabeth lectures him on his duties (the two arranged as if in a Bergman film), he turns to her with moist eyes, and Colman's chipper spirit for a fraction of a moment dissolves in the face of this suffering -- classic.

anderson's thatcher is great. the harshness and fragility, the self-consciousness that hides behind self-righteousness, this is not just a performance of a human being but a whole economic and moral outlook. she's playing thatcherism.

Few things are more cringeworthy than Americans talking about Thatcher.

jesus wept!

I'm sure we talk utter shite about US politics and political figures tbf.

No we do not.

Jed otm, this is on my inattentive viewing of the EPs up to Fagen, but the performances are not the thing I'd concentrate too much on. I really love how -- while trying to account for it -- trolly it is about that period and the figures it's looking at.

xxp
true but I think that was some seriously bad yellow-smartie inspired hyperbolic claptrap there! But I will try and be more thoughtful next time I post about Biden shitting into his nappy whilst absent-mindedly signing off on drone-strikes on bairns!

I have an OFFICIAL: THATCHER QUITS Evening Standard newsstand poster framed and hung over the sofa (and I did my undergrad dissertation on Thatcherism, which was the writing sample that got me on the NME).

American though, so I guess none of this counts?

The exception that proves the rule. Whatever that means.

Lol just watched the Charles and Di interview that veg linked and "calls to Australia" bit is just such a laugh. They are really playing.