Controversy and criticism continue to follow the hit drama series The Crown.
As its fifth season premiers in just over two weeks, the show’s creator has broken his silence amid the backlash the forthcoming season is already receiving.
The new series, available for streaming on November 9, is expected to reenact the “all-out war” of the then Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana as their marriage crumbles.
Since the release of the upcoming season’s teaser trailer, royal experts and those close to the Royal Family have claimed that Netflix has “perverted the facts” claiming the show has been “consistently dishonest from day one”.
However, The Crown creator Peter Morgan has come out arguing that those allegations are simply untrue.
“I think we must all accept that the 1990s was a difficult time for the royal family, and King Charles will almost certainly have some painful memories of that period,” Morgan told Variety.
“But that doesn’t mean that, with the benefit of hindsight, history will be unkind to him, or the monarchy. The show certainly isn’t.
“I have enormous sympathy for a man in his position — indeed, a family in their position. People are more understanding and compassionate than we expect sometimes.”
Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki, the actors playing Charles and Diana, are also defending Morgan, saying they believe he and Netflix have dealt with the sensitive storyline accordingly.
“Peter and the entire crew of this job do their utmost to really handle everything with such sensitivity and truth and complexity, as do actors,” Debicki told Variety.
“The amount of research and care and conversations and dialogue that happen over, from a viewer’s perspective, something probably that you would never ever notice is just immense.
“From that very first meeting [with] Peter, I knew that I’d entered into this space where this was taken seriously [in] a deeply caring way. So that’s my experience of the show.”
West has also told the publication that the cast and crew are aware of the “heavy, heavy responsibility” of telling the story accurately and has assured those concerned that they take it “pretty seriously”.
But it’s not just the portrayal of King Charles’ tumultuous past that people are angry about.
The Crown producers have also received seething comments from those close to members of the royal household after learning that the show’s highly anticipated fifth season will depict the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, “pursuing an affair” with socialite and close family friend Penelope “Penny” Knatchbull.
Per Tatler, the upcoming season of The Crown will reportedly show one episode with the Duke touching hands with the Countess while he confesses his “marriage problems”, saying that he and his wife have “grown in separate directions.”
The move has been poorly received by royal critics, with the Queen’s former press secretary Dickie Arbiter claiming Netflix has been “very distasteful.”
“Coming just weeks after the nation laid Her Majesty to rest next to Prince Philip, this is very distasteful and, quite frankly, cruel rubbish,” Arbiter said.
“The truth is that Penny was a long-time friend of the whole family.
“Netflix are not interested in people’s feelings.”
Despite the passing of the show’s main subject, Queen Elizabeth II, and the countless negative responses, Netflix is showing no signs of slowing down the production of its massive hit drama series as filming of the show’s sixth and final season is currently underway.