The Crown: The Complete Sixth and Final Season - Blu-ray Review

Movie
While The Crown has gotten a lot of flack over in England for taking a critical look at the modern day royal family, and while I myself haven’t really LOVED the show, I AM really glad that we are getting more physical releases of streaming shows. In this case, a Netflix show that has gone on a full 6 seasons, garnered multiple awards for acting, and we finally have the wrap up to enjoy on Blu-ray.

Based on the award winning play “The Audience” (also written by showrunner Peter Morgan), this absolutely lavish Netflix original show takes an in depth look at semi modern day English history in the form of the royal family over the course of many decades. While the show started with Elizabeth II (Claire Foy and Olivia Colman at differing ages) we’ve moved into the modern (ish) era for the last two seasons, with this season focusing on Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki, who looks EERILY like the departed princess) a few scant weeks before her infamous car crash in the tunnel.

Jumping back 8 weeks prior to the crash, we go in depth with her tumultuous relationship with Prince Charles, as well as trying to humanize her in a way that would make the audience want to watch the show, even though we know where the inevitable ending is going to reach its climax. IN THAT respect I think that Debicki does a fantastic job actually playing off the tics and visual queues of the late Princess, but the sixth season also delves straight into almost pure fantasy at times. The internal struggles between her, Charles and her desire for a life with Dodi Al-Fayed are overwhelmingly soap opera like, with the writers slathering on the angst like we’re in the middle of a CW TV show.

The sixth season is rightfully considered the worst of the series, and I can understand why. The sloppy soap opera take on Diana’s last days feels kind of hammy and cliched, and by the time the “ghost Diana” came out at the end to have a talk with the queen I actually started laughing more than I should have. Again, I don’t have any super fascination with the British Royal family like many Americans these days, but I also don’t have the strict respect that the British have for the family either. So looking in this felt a bit too cheesy, a bit too hammy, and quite honestly, a bit let down after how well Debicki did in season 5. And introducing Princess Kate in the 2nd half just felt like the season lacked some direction.

While I seem like I’m bashing it a bit much, I have to admit that if you’ve liked the previous 5 seasons (which all range from “good” to “excellent”) then you’ll at least enjoy enough of the final season to wrap up the entire over arching familial story line. Debicki is fantastic as Diana, but sadly the writing is strained a bit too much for my taste, and the overall cohesion of the is a step down from what we’ve seen from previous years.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

As is the case with the last 5 seasons, the Blu-ray release for The Crown Season 6 is a very solid contender. While it’s not in 4K UHD like I would have LIKED, the Blu-ray is very stable, with a clean image that looks very honey soaked for the daylight shots, with bright warm colors and fantastic detail levels. I did notice some banding in low light shots as well as the opening credits (that opening black background is the most obvious) but overall this is a very clean and crisp digital image that has very few flaws..









Audio:

I hemmed and hawed between giving the 5.1 DTS-HD MA track a 4.5/5 rating or a 4/5 rating, and finally settled on a 4/5 simply because of how simple and dialog forward the tack can be. Voices are clean and clear as can be, without ever getting lost midst the string driven score. Likewise the rear end of the room is awash with subtle panning effects and slick background noises that layer upon layer and create a very immersive experience (especially on places like Al-Fayed’s yacht). Bass is punch and clean when called upon, but it’s never really a massive bass bomb by any stretch of the imagination. Simply put, this is a good dramatic track that stretches the genre just a tad with a slightly more immersive track than most would expect, but never really getting into the shock and awe territory.
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Extras:

• A Family Saga
• Royal Weddings
• A Lasting Legacy

The Crown: The Complete Sixth and Final Season may not be AS good as the first 5 years, but it is a solid enough finale for the lavish period piece drama. The Blu-ray from Sony looks and sounds as great as always, with my only annoyed “quirk” coming from the packaging. Sony encompasses all 4 BD-50 discs in a single hub “stack pack” Blu-ray case, which isn’t my personal favorite (but since it’s your standard 15 mm spine Blu-ray case, you can easily sway it out of a 14 mm 4 disc viva elite, or a 15mm 5 disc case for a couple bucks). Extras are pretty slim, but fans of the show will definitely want to complete the collection, and Sony has brought the goods with great audio/video.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, Dominic West, Elizabeth Debikcki
Created by: Peter Morgan
Aspect Ratio: 2.00:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French, Spanish DTS-HD MA 5.2
Subtitles: English SDH, English, French
Rated: NR
Runtime: 531 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: September 17th, 2024