Well, today has been an interesting one. If you’ve stayed away from your TV and off of social media, then you probably missed that the U.K.’s Prime Minister Liz Truss just resigned from her role. And you probably missed that Netflix just dropped its trailer to The Crown’s fifth season. Why does that matter? Because the social media posts came with the caption “A new era approaches. THE CROWN returns November 9th”.

Impeccable timing, we must say.

Set to the sounds of The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony”, the trailer shows that this season will follow The Royal Family in the 90s, when then Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Princess Diana’s (Elizabeth Debicki) incredibly public marriage unraveled in the spotlight and Buckingham Palace was set ablaze in ‘92. The trailer continues highlighting Charles’ connection with Camila, Charles being reminded of his duties by Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton), and Diana being chastised by Prince Philip (Jonathan Pryce) for not adhering to the system she married into. But Diana states in the trailer “I won’t go quietly. I’ll battle until the end”.

After showing Diana’s infamous interview with journalist Martin Bashir (Prasanna Puwanarajah), the trailer speeds into a flurry of images from this upcoming season, before ending on an image of Queen Elizabeth II asking, “How did it come to this?”.

This season of The Crown has already gathered plenty of controversy. Reports stated that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had their upcoming docuseries delayed until 2023 in an effort to ensure that their project isn’t conflated with cosigning The Crown. 

Additionally, there were concerns around depicting the death of Princess Diana. Deadline and Netflix reported that the exact moment of the crash would not be shown on-screen, but that the fatal crash that took Princess Diana’s life would be a part of the sixth season’s timeline. Season six is currently being filmed.

Lastly, Oscar-winning actress Dame Judi Dench penned an open letter in the British tabloid The Times stating that Netflix “seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism”. She also called for the streaming giant to place disclaimers before its episodes fearing that audiences will interpret the unfolding of events in the show as historical fact. 

“While many will recognise The Crown for the brilliant but fictionalised account of events that it is, I fear that a significant number of viewers, particularly overseas, may take its version of history as being wholly true,” she added. “This is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent.”

Don’t mind us. We’re just sitting here with our popcorn watching this all unfold and with the latest trailer, so is the rest of the world. 

The Crown’s fifth season season, which will also star Lesley Manville, Claudia Harrison, Olivia Williams, Jonny Lee Miller, Salim Daw, and Khalid Abdalla, is set to be released on Netflix on November 9, 2022. 

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