The Crown review: Sumptuous but empty, Netflix's latest fails its queen

The Crown establishes its ambitions immediately. A first shot of King George VI, coughing up blood into the cold porcelain of a lavatory.

This will be the true tale, the peek behind closed doors, the deglamourisation of the United Kingdom's royal family; all promises writer/creator Peter Morgan makes with enthusiasm in the opening episodes of Netflix's latest original series.

His is a historical drama that opens with grim intent as it plays out the events which led up to Queen Elizabeth II's coronation; viewed not as the celebration of the beginning of a reign, but mourning the end of another. King George (Jared Harris)'s decaying health - and eventual passing - stalks The Crown's opening episodes like a constant phantom.

One cemented in the show's muted colour palette, which adds sombre grandeur to its formidable budget, the highest of any TV series to date; all a clear attempt to distance itself away from the heady nostalgia of recent royal history, from brightly coloured tea towels and commemorative plates.

Yet, all its intense and immediate focus on King George betrays something else about The Crown; right at its start, we're already shifting the lens away from Elizabeth (Claire Foy) herself. It seems bracingly ironic that a show about the monarchy would have so much of its drama take place far outside of the Queen's own self, to the point she becomes not much more than an object in her own life.

In short, break this series down into its components and you've essentially got a series of men in rooms talking about what a woman should or shouldn't do, before politely sitting said woman down and delivering upon their decision. Which she always seems more than happy to quietly oblige. And that is not the making of engaging television.

For the vast majority of The Crown, Elizabeth's only displays of decisiveness - which one would presume was an essential part of rulership - seem tied either to obeying her husband's own tiring demands or in securing herself the guidance of other men; certainly, she'll only ever stand up to her husband when instructed to do so by the government.

The Crown displays Elizabeth as little more than a puppet, a polished dolly. Certainly, there's truth in this reflection and her own limitations as a female ruler in the first half of the 20th century; yet, Morgan makes no attempt to intellectually engage with this idea or question its validity, nor does he make any effort to enter inside of the mind of its queen or unlock her motivations.

Indeed, Elizabeth so rarely actually takes a central role in any of the narrative drama which unfolds, bowing always to the various men around her; even in 'Smoke and Mirrors', which deals with the lead-up to her coronation, her presence is barely felt. We instead experience such a momentous event as seen through the eyes of the Duke of Windsor (and former king) Edward (Alex Jennings).

Indeed, The Crown seems almost satisfied with its queen's own inaction. "You know when to keep your mouth shut, that's more important than anything," the Queen Mother tells her at one point. It's not that Elizabeth is required to be empowered beyond the constraints of her time, but to entirely disengage with how those limitations impacted Elizabeth herself seems almost to tacitly support them. Historical context excuses only so much when it comes to the female characterisation here.

One of the least rosy portrayals on the show is Prince Philip (Matt Smith), painted as a chauvinistic aristocrat crumbling under the emasculation of being consort to a queen. "I've signed myself away," he bemoans before their marriage. Smith does a sublime job with Philip's brashness, but the potential conflict here takes almost an entire season to come to a head; he's treated here largely as a troublesome quirk, rather than a threatened male in danger of derailing his wife's sovereignty.

The Crown's reluctance to engage with actual ideas and conflicts extends as well into the global political sphere. You'd think it would be difficult to explore the early years of Elizabeth's reign without engaging to some respect England's place on the international stage and the first stages of decolonisation which took place at the time. It has a jolly good go at it, though.

In 'Hyde Park Corner', then-Princess Elizabeth and Philip visit Nairobi; where she makes the speech, "Nairobi was a savage place, the home of wild animals and uninhabited except for the occasional band of nomadic herdsman. Now it is a modern vibrant city." Wordlessly, the show seems almost to consent with the views purported here, relying on tropes of African quaintness to paint her visit to the country; of children running with ostriches and a single tear rolling down a toddler's face at her departure.

Nor is this helped when Winston Churchill's portrayal seems to exist only to humanise him without criticism; as a passionate, tragic figure who was simply misunderstood due to his brusque manner. Gracefully tiptoed around are mentions of Churchill's brutal international policy, of his consistent move for military intervention against dissent within the Empire; sending in British troops to mercilessly crush the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya.

In such a crucial period in the history of the British Empire, The Crown instead focuses on the more straightforward matters of the Great Smog of 1952, served as an opportunity for Churchill to show humanity and goodwill without any moral uncertainty.

That said, its within The Crown's closing episodes that it finally stumbles towards its central conflict, as epitomised in Elizabeth's decision of whether to defy the Church's traditions and allow her sister Margaret (Vanessa Kirby) to marry divorcée Peter Townsend (Ben Miles). Some of Morgan's best writing lies here, within a conversation shared between Elizabeth and the abdicated Edward; where he describes the nature of a ruler as, "half-people... the two sides within us, human and crown engaged in a fearful civil war, which never ends."

Finally, Elizabeth is allowed to face a decision that is entirely her own and we can begin to understand the torture of a queen. We begin to understand her mind. She may have before simply followed what men who came into her consulting chambers stated, but now she must each listen to the advice of opposing sides - duty and family - and consider their impact on her own place as both a sister and a queen.

The Crown could have soared if it had truly delved into the psyche of a reluctant queen learning to step up to the plate and take on the magnitude of rulership; instead of isolating her thoughts only until the season's closing, and its dramatic climax. But that, at least, brings hope for the future now that the curtain on Elizabeth's mind seems to have been pulled back.

Furthermore, the show's finale foreshadowing the Suez Crisis - one that formidably changed Britain's place on the map - shows promising potential for the future; as a drama which sees the bracing, internal conflict between the personal and the political. There is a soul underneath the pomp and the circumstance, if the future of The Crown dares to uncover it.

The Crown is currently streaming on Netflix.