‘The Crown’ Season 6 Reactions: Some UK Critics Aghast At “Ghost Diana”; French Reviewers Largely Swoon
16.11.2023 - 14:01
/ deadline.com
SPOILER ALERT: This story features details from Season 6 of The Crown
Reviews are in for the first four episodes of the sixth and final season of Netflix’s The Crown, and judging from reactions in the UK and France, there’s a divide just about as wide as the English Channel.
The two countries will forever be linked by the tragedy that was the death of Princess Diana in a Parisian car crash on August 31, 1997. But critics today are divergent.
Several major British outlets are negative on the latest installments which dropped at 8am local time, with some taking issue with visions of the late Princess who engages in conversations with the Queen and Prince Charles. These scenes have gotten a lot of attention, referenced as featuring Diana’s “ghost.” The Crown creator Peter Morgan recently told Deadline, “The word ghost is unhelpful, I was never writing anything from a supernatural perspective, not at all. It was more an indication that, when someone has just passed, they’re still vivid in the minds of all those close to them and love them… It felt to me more like an extension of her in real life, rather than a ghost.”
Meanwhile, French reviewers are largely embracing the episodes, with one calling the so-called “ghost” scenes the opposite of dark. Scroll below for a round-up of what critics on both sides of La Manche are saying.
The new season begins with Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and Prince Charles (Dominic West) spending their first summer apart as divorcés. Their young sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, are played by Rufus Kampa and Fflyn Edwards, respectively. The first four episodes chronicle the events leading to Diana and Dodi Fayed’s (Khalid Abdalla) death and its immediate aftermath.
What UK critics are