The Queen’s Passing Has Meant A Huge Ratings Spike For One Netflix Series
Netflix's The Crown has seen an 800% jump in the ratings following Queen Elizabeth II's passing.
Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, viewership of Netflix’s hit series The Crown skyrocketed around the world. Between September 9th and 11th September, the number of people watching rose by more than 800% in the United Kingdom compared with the previous week. According to data via The Guardian, the figures quadrupled in the U.S while France had more than three times the viewers it did the previous weekend.
Globally, viewership was almost four times higher as The Crown raced to second place among Netflix’s most-watched series. It initially entered the rankings leader board at number seven with 17.57 million hours viewed. Elsewhere in the top ten was season five of Cobra Kai, at number one with 107 million hours, Deadline reports. Devil in Ohio, The Imperfects, Dated and Related, The Sandman, Partner Track, Stranger Things, Echoes, and Manifest were also in the mix.
Created by Peter Morgan, The Crown was developed from his 2006 film The Queen and his 2013 stage play The Audience. The first season of the Netflix drama premiered in 2016, covering the period from the Queen’s marriage to the Duke of Edinburgh in 1947 to the disintegration of Princess Margaret’s engagement to Group Captain Peter Townsend in 1955. The second season of the Netflix show chronicles the 1956 Suez Crisis, the retirement of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and Prince Edward’s birth.
The Crown’s third season is set from 1964 to 1977 and includes Harold Wilson’s two terms as Prime Minister. The fourth season spans 1979 to the early 1990s and follows Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister. It also examines Prince Charles’s marriage to Lady Diana Spencer. The fifth and sixth seasons of the Netflix drama will close the series and are said to chronicle the Queen’s reign into the 21st century.
Every two seasons, new actors fill the roles to reflect the aging process. Claire Foy portrays the Queen in the first two seasons, with Olivia Colman taking over in seasons three and four. After the Queen’s passing, Netflix said it would pause production on The Crown’s sixth season which is due to portray the Royal Family in the early 2000s. Season five of the hit series is set to premiere in November and will depict the early to mid-1990s, with Imelda Staunton taking on the role of the Queen.
While viewers are clamoring to learn about the Queen and her family through the Netflix series, it’s worth noting that The Crown is filled with historical inaccuracies. Every season is heavily flawed and has been dubbed as “anti-monarchy.” The Guardian described it as fake history and a cowardly abuse of artistic license which fabricated history to suit its preconceived narrative.
Royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith also criticized the series for falsifying real events. She argued that because The Crown is such a lavish and expensive production, that is beautifully acted and cleverly written with so much attention to visual details, viewers are tricked into believing that what they are watching actually happened. She added that while the earlier seasons were period pieces, the recent “history” in seasons three and four are ever crueler in its false depictions.
