WHAT ABOUT THE CROWN ?

This new Netflix chapter in The Crown's saga was at the same time riveting and ordinary. The story is well-known and the behavior of the protagonists, looking like lost souls in a soap opera, is flabergasting. The royals are portrayed as being all about rituals and curtsies and about nothing else outside but their own moth-balled charades at home. They live in decors they inherited, by prerogatives which remain unquestioned and "ruling" over subjects they are clueless about. Even Diana runs "empty" in the midst of a pack of dogs.

The Crown can be seeen as an idictement of a system which is out of touch with reality, as much as the Tsarist regime was oblivious of its subjects. The Windsors are presented as fools without redemption. The "entourage" is made of deranged minds and arthritic knees that are beyond therapy.

Other second- and third-tier monarchs must look at this sad farce with an amount of dread and fear.  Presidents come and go. Trump or Nixon's attempts to install some pomp in the office were derided in the start blocks. The monarchical magic doesn't work any longer. Grace Kelly and Diana were actually "imports" who blew up the machine before becoming themselves victims of their Guy Fawkes attempts to let fresh air in.

This last Netflix batch felt tired and gloomy. The queen looks like being on automatic pilot.  Even Thatcher is reduced to a script made for a frustrated vicar's wife. The actress who plays Diana makes an almost heroic attempt to come close to the "myth" but her battle is too uphill to eclipse the original.  Camilla's part is kind of subversive:  cigarettes, whisky.

Reconstitutions and remakes are the more arduous if the original was a bummer to start with. Most of these people are too mediocre to attain a level of lasting interest.