Netflix Confirms Its Final Sixth Season And This Is How Far The Story Will Go

After announcing that the upcoming fifth season of Netflix’s critically-acclaimed royal drama The Crown would be the last, its creator and writer, Peter Morgan, has confirmed that it will be extended for a sixth season, as was originally planned.

Let’s start with the spoilers: Seasons five and six of the series about the British monarchy, @TheCrownNetflix, won’t get to the most recent real dramas such as the decision by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, to step down from royal duties and move to Los Angeles, or the current scandal around Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and his involvement with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Some royal correspondents have commented on the coincidence of the ‘lackluster’ launch of the third season of the series with Prince Andrew’s disastrous Newsnight interview, as unfortunate timing. The Guardian columnist Emma Brockes wrote: “It’s not often one has one’s delusions dismantled in real time, but so it has been, this past fortnight, witnessing Prince Andrew’s flagrant awfulness in tandem with The Crown’s terrible third season. The experience has been like a sudden, dramatic return to reason.”

Nor will the fifth and sixth seasons touch on the family life of the popular Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, or feature any of the latest lavish royal weddings.

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The series, watched by more than 73 millions households worldwide, will end, in fact, in the early 2000’s and, as creator Peter Morgan explained to the Hollywood Reporter, “series six will not bring us any closer to present day — it will simply enable us to cover the same period (of season five) in greater detail.”

“As we started to discuss the storylines for series five, it soon became clear that in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of the story, we should go back to the original plan and do six seasons.”

The period he’s referring to will explore other major British royal dramas, including the end of the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana and her tragic death in a car accident in Paris.

“The decade included the break-up of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, the collapse of Prince Andrew’s marriage to Sarah Ferguson, the devastating fire at Windsor Castle, and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales — which plunged the Royal Family into crisis,” reports the BBC.

Diana, Princess of Wales, played by Emma Corrin, is making her debut in the fourth season of the show, currently in production and to be released later this year, featuring Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher and with Olivia Colman returning as the queen. Tobias Menzies also will be back as Prince Philip and Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret.

For the upcoming fifth and sixth seasons, Imelda Staunton will take over the role of the Queen from Colman who, in her turn, replaced Claire Foy who interpreted Queen Elizabeth during the first years of her reign over the first two seasons.

Phantom Thread star Lesley Manville will play Princess Margaret, following in the footsteps of Vanessa Kirby and Helena Bonham Carter in the role of the queen’s sister.