16 November 2023 , 14:50
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The Crown's final season has come under fire after Princess Diana's ghost has made several appearances.
The first part of the final season of the hit Netflix series, released today, covers events of the late nineties up to 2005. It began in 1997 with the most catastrophic moment in recent royal history. As a car screeches through a tunnel in Paris, crashing in a horrific accident, the dramatic opener lurches viewers immediately into a specific time and moment that everyone remembers.
It also depicts Princess Diana's relationship with Dodi Fayed and her close bond with her sons Prince William and Prince Harry. After her death, Princess Diana (played by Elizabeth Debicki) is seen returning to Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II as a ghost – which has infuriated some viewers.
In a one-star review, the latest series of The Crown was called a "Diana-obsessed series is the very definition of bad writing". "Beyond all its formal failures, late-period Crown is also impossibly hamstrung by being set well within living memory," one review read.
Princess Diana appears as a ghost several timesThe Guardian review went on: "Even if there were anything to engage with, the memories and consequent questions that crowd into the viewer's mind at every stage would make it impossible. It started teetering in season three, lost its balance entirely over the next two and is now plummeting into the abyss."
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Meanwhile, Anita Singh of The Telegraph felt the same about the new series and said the "Netflix jewel hits a dead end" as the new season is "haunted by Princess Diana's bizarre ghost". She gave the season two stars and commented on Diana's ghost appearing to comfort the Prince of Wales and to give the Queen "friendly PR advice".
The review said the attempt to bring her back as a ghost felt "like desperation on the part of writer Peter Morgan", who created the series. Another review, from The Times, commented on Diana's ghost despite giving it four stars. They said the late Princess of Wales' ghost "wasn't the show's finest hour" and was "peculiarly self-defeating in an otherwise powerful and moving opening four-episode suite".
Diana returning as a ghost throughout the episodes might be a horrifying thought to many fans, but the show tried to portray it as her returning to offer support after her death. In some supernatural moments, Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) returned for deep and meaningful conversations with both Charles (Dominic West) and the Queen (Imelda Staunton).
In a scene with the late Queen, the monarch pondered her reaction to Diana’s death, accused by Charles of being 'cold and unfeeling', Diana’s ghost apologised for turning everything “upside down” and advised her on “what the people need”.
Elsewhere in the series, a bereaved Mohammad Al-Fayed (Salim Daw) spoke to the ghost of his dead son Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla). Though they are perhaps intended as imagined conversations rather than actual ghosts, the scenes of a glamorous Diana popping into everyone’s thoughts are a shock for viewers.