Tuesday TV Touchbase: The Crown

Before we start off this week's Touchbase, there is more cancellation news about a show I watch. 

Outlander will end with it's 8th season.  

Unlike the pricks over at Warner Bros. Discovery, I'm assuming the fine folks at Starz will allow the gang at Outlander to actually writer, film and complete their 8th season AND then (this is the important part) actually show it to us.   

As much as I am a fan our beloved Sassenach, I think this is the right decision for the show. As much I as I will miss Claire and Jamie, I think Outlander is reaching a point where it's time to bring it in for a landing. 

Season 7 will be coming later this year.

If anyone comes to the Tuesday TV Touchbase looking to be on the cutting edge of the television zeitgeist, I am sorry to disappoint you.  Sandman dropped back in August and I'm only now getting around to it.

Yes, clips of Wednesday have played themselves out on Tik Tok but no I haven't written about it yet but I will. It's on my to do list. 

And there is The Crown which dropped in October and only last week did Andrea and I finally finish it.

Or as I am prone to call it,  This Damn Thing.  

The fifth season of This Damn Thing  ends with Queen Elizabeth and the monarchy at a bit of crossroads.  

Prince Charles is sent off to Hong Kong to hand over the keys of the former British colony to China.  

The Queen bids farewell to the royal yacht, the Britannia.  

The royal family is feeling lost, bewildered and more than bit irrelevant.   

Diana has won her long sought divorce from Charles but her freedom from the Prince is not the tonic she thought it would be and is still feeling blue. Perhaps the kind invitation to join Mohamed Al-Fayed in France is just what she needs to feel better about life.

Which is where the season ends.

Those who know history, those of us who lived through it are fully aware that the trip to France will not be a happy beginning.

It will be a tragic ending.

But Peter Morgan is saving that for season 6. 

Season 5 is the long torturous journey to the tragic end.

OK, let's get a few things straight. Yeah, Charles was dick towards Diana, acting cold, callous and cruel.  

"I don't love Diana! I love Camilla! Wah! Wah! Wah!"  

But Diana sometimes doesn't come off too great either. 

"Charles doesn't love me! Everyone hates me! Wah! Wah! Wah!"

Which I understand is not a popular sentiment. Diana was the woman scorned, the aggrieved party, the people's princess being consigned to a metaphorical dungeon by an uncaring royal family. 

But the portrayal here of Diana is not particularly sympathetic. As much as her retribution against the royal family may be earned and deserved, the end result is a Diana who appears petty and vindictive.  She gains no solace or reprieve for all her machinations to expose the sins and follies of Prince Charles and his dysfunctional family of enablers.  

As we move this saga closer to the present based on people who are still alive and being watched by people who actually were around when this shit was going down, I think Peter Morgan who has made a career of creating stories for film and television based on the royal family is leery of providing too jaundiced a view of said family.  

OK, so the royals had it coming from the dirt Diana was dishing out but Peter wants us to think, "Were they really THAT bad to deserve all that?"  

The fifth season of This Damn Thing begins with a fresh round of recasting. Imelda Staunton takes over as the Queen and is a bit flat compared to her predecessors, Claire Foy and Olivia Colman. But then there isn't much for Staunton's Queen to do with Elizabeth reduced to the role of a mere witness to passing history while actual drama is happening elsewhere.  

Charles is chomping at the bit to be out from under Diana and be with the woman he really loves, Camilla. And he's desperately concerned the monarchy is driving itself over a cliff into irrelevance, a state that would be much improved if he were King. 

Basically Elizabeth commits to outlive the hell out of everybody because Charles will not be getting crown one damn second sooner than is absolutely necessary. 

All of these concerns will be shattered and fractured when death comes calling when we get to season 6 of This Damn Thing...er, I mean The Crown.

And that is that for the Tuesday TV Touchbase this week.

Next week, we stick around the subject of British royalty as we look at the television work of British historian Lucy Worsley.  

Coming in later editions of the Touchbase, I'll be posting about the revival of Night Court, the end of season 1 of The Sandman and the first season of Celebrity Jeopardy and I swear I will get around to watching Wednesday.  

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.