Many people don’t realize it, but: The Crown marks the end of Netflix’s biggest project this year since the streaming service began producing its own content around 10 years ago. The series tells the story of the British royal family after the end of the Second World War over 6 seasons. According to Forbes, Netflix was able to do this on average $100 million per season cost. In total, the series will cost at least $600 million, making it the streaming service’s most expensive series to date.
Accordingly high expectations Those responsible are linking it to The Crown – and rightly so. The access numbers have been outstanding in the past. However, interest in season 6 is waning. Why?
How badly did The Crown Season 6 really flop?
The Crown season 5 stormed Netflix’s top 10 in the world last year with outstanding numbers: 107 million hours of the series were watched during the first week, the streaming service announced. Season 6 is also at number 1 in the series charts in many countries. However, the new episodes only have 37 million hours watched. At first glance, the break-in seems catastrophic. But it can be partially explained: Netflix only released four episodes of the 6th season. The remaining six episodes will follow in December. Of course, this reduces the total number of hours watched.
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The Crown: Charles and Diana
But even with this “disadvantage” the overall trend is clearly downwards. And the opposite development was actually expected, because season 6 deals with the most tragic event in the recent history of the royals. The Death of Princess Diana shocked the royal family and the world. Why doesn’t the story attract more people?
The reviews for The Crown Season 6 are weak and this is mainly due to the handling of Diana
A possible answer: Since season 5, the reviews for the Royals series have gotten significantly worse: on the aggregator Meta Critic, for example, the average dropped from 86 (season 4) to 65 points (season 5). Season 6 fell even further to 61 points, putting the season 20 points below the previous low: 81 points for Season 1.
The Guardian criticizes the new episodes and criticizes the way Diana was treated in the series after her death returns as a ghost. The text sees the decision as an example “Screenplay that hardly has any claim to craft, let alone art”. Even major magazines like Vogue, Slate and Vulture rate “Ghost Diana” as a major creative misstep. Diana actress Elizabeth Debicki sees it completely differently.
We will only be able to find out whether The Crown season 6 actually turns out to be a major flop for Netflix when the remaining episodes start. From then on The 6 final episodes of the series will be available on the platform on December 14, 2023.