The fourth season of “The crown“, in 2020, finally seemed to solve the problem of the representation of Queen Elizabeth II: in opposition. Writer Peter Morgan is inexorably drawn to the sovereign and does his best with her when she comes into a one-on-one conflict. Previously, he portrayed Tony Blair pushing her for change in the movie “The Queen”; Blair is among the Prime Ministers whose relationship with Her Majesty turns into a prismatic portrayal in the play ‘The Audience’. And on television, showing the Queen’s 1980s clouded by her thwarted relationships with Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher, Morgan finally found the story on her show.

It was a long road to get here, and it was not to last. Perhaps it’s just a reaction to the genuinely impressive Thatcher and Diana-era work that makes the new fifth season of “The Crown” feel like the show’s weakest outing yet: a show generally scattered and unfocused is less disciplined than ever. The fact of the divorce between Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Princess Diana (Elisabeth Debicki) being so obviously the point of greatest interest for contemporary audiences has forced the series to slow its pace and linger. (“The Crown” faces the same problem as the Queen; Diana, with her voracious eyes and need to be cherished, consumes all the oxygen.) But even after being given the gift of a momentous scandal with two people extremely charismatic and imperfect participants like grit, “The Crown” finds that it has nothing to say.

Debicki is very strong in a role that would challenge any performer; Emma Corrin has absorbed all the marital abuse that made Diana feel wronged, while Debicki has to deal with the aftermath. (West is just plain misinterpreted, a sad descent from the formidable Josh O’Connor.) And Imelda Staunton replaces Claire Foy and Olivia Colman as the third queen, and it’s safe to say she’s achieved a convincing likeness (which is no small feat, since the iteration of Elizabeth she’s playing is the one that viewers will be most familiar with). But the character she plays is not a character at all; a life devoted to duty and country has, by its nature, smoothed out conflict. Staunton’s best moments come when the Queen vents her frustration in an imperious manner learned over time; it’s a reminder that living near a royal figure isn’t easy. But more often than not, Staunton and the character she plays back off.

Which is not new in itself! Morgan has nimbly circumvented Elizabeth’s unknowability before, but the fact of Diana’s estrangement from the Windsor family as we enter the 1990s, as well as the ascendancy of John Major (Jonny Lee Miller) presents new new puzzles. How can he dramatize the Windsor family conflict when it is, for the most part, going through intermediaries? The answer seems, in large part, to task both Staunton and Debicki with taking meaningful looks at middle distances. (When asked if the show is respectful enough of the real people it represents: it is too respectful, forever taking sides by showing that everyone involved is inherently good. At one point, Prince Charles, the closest thing to an anti-hero on the show, dances to rap music with the young people of color his charity supports, as the on-screen text tells us how many people he helped.) And the domestic politics of the entire season the story of a leader best remembered as a drama-free buffer between the Thatcher and Blair eras means what has always been a vein rich for Morgan’s writing, the relationship between head of state and head of government falls out of mind as it unfolds.

One senses Morgan’s slow realization that expanding Charles-Diana’s story to more of the series means nothing outside of this timeline can enter the story, and his understanding of that which can be included. Before the banter between Diana and Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), we get an excavation of an episode of the rise of the Al-Fayed family in the UK, which at least comes as a shock to the show; later there is an episode examining the queen’s concern for the remains of the downed Romanov family. There are generous readings of what these two episodes represent for “The Crown” – respectively, a social-realistic look at a family of color settling in a changing nation and a depiction of the growing awareness of British royal family of past and present guilt. popular displeasure – but both feel introduced somewhat haphazardly, appeared in the story to flesh out the season, and not as part of a unified vision of who these characters are or what they want.

There’s an obnoxious didacticism to “The Crown” this time around, as if, by dramatizing among the most scrutinized series of events of the late 20th century, it’s doing us a favor. The episode in which Diana does an explosive interview with the BBC on Guy Fawkes Day includes the young Prince William receiving a school tutorial on the gunpowder plot and a home lecture on the history of the monarchy with television of the queen mother. The metaphorical valence of Diana’s interview and its meaning for the other characters is literally presented to the audience as a proper lesson for a child.

And the now-awaited spotlight scenes for Princess Margaret (Lesley Manville) and Prince Philip (Jonathan Pryce) are both performed perfectly (Manville in particular standing out as possibly the strongest of the three inhabitants of the richest role in the series) and schematically frustrating. Both of these characters have something they want from a family member that she, as queen, cannot give them – in Margaret’s case, an apology; in Philippe’s case, truly egalitarian love. It’s their central trauma, the thing around which their life, or at least their highlight of each season, revolves. But hey, she can’t give it to them! And so we recursively revolve around the same fights.

It is in Margaret’s case that the weakness of “The Crown” is most pronounced. Margaret, who was denied the opportunity to marry the man she loved by her sister’s fiat, is once again angry and upset by what has been taken from her. It comes amid a series of family and personal setbacks for Elizabeth, who eventually placates Margaret by giving her a veiled special mention in her famous ‘Annus Horribilis’ speech, calling her ‘my sun and my water’ and thanking her. for his personal sacrifice. The real talk is online; no such grateful mention of his family, in these terms or any other, exists.

It’s not unethical, exactly; “The Crown” is not a fact and does not present itself as such. But it is an overshoot that betrays the game. This series claims to use the tools of art to lead us to a better understanding of a figure that resists being turned into a metaphor. Unlike her family members living aloud, Elizabeth has given the world little of her inner self, so little that the temptation to make up details is met with the sneaky suspicion that the results might not be so interesting. And, here, her confession that she was unhappy — by her standards, shockingly frank — doesn’t provide enough juice for Morgan; he must find a way to make it seem like his protagonist was also emotionally demonstrative towards his family when they needed it most.

But – as far as we know from what’s on the public record – she wasn’t; that was the plot of it, as it is, and finding the story within those confines is the putative task of a show like this. Instead, the endless embroideries of “The Crown” become colorless and dull. What awaits us for “The Crown” is a final season in which we must go from 1997 to everything that is the end point. Much remains to be done – Diana’s death, the Blair Decade and the Iraq War lie ahead, as well as who knows how much modern cultural history. And the likely increase in pacing and change in dynamics can help the show find its footing at the end. But, to borrow a phrase from Queen Elizabeth’s speech about her bad year, this is not a season I will return to with undiluted pleasure. It’s a clean line, conveying a sense of the mindset and general attitude of the reserved person delivering it. Too bad Peter Morgan couldn’t let him speak for himself.

The fifth season of “The Crown” will debut on netflix Wednesday, November 9.