Love the feel of the big budget biopic. If the amazing previous seasons are to be lived up to then season 6 will have to establish a quick relationship with the new characters and the faithful TC audience.
I do think they went easy on Charles, with some gentle and benign swipes at Camilla. I envied the ultra-realism of this production but this episode does not reflect the dislike the people still had for Camilla at the time. The upper middle class bogan persona did come out well as we say in colonies. The children getting dragged along was a great sidebar for the entire episode and the attention to detail like the video game that the young prince enjoyed was superb.
There's a great philosophical backdrop about duty, marriage, love, and sacrifice hidden in this script. The Queen stays regal and resolute, the prince is impulsive and the bureaucracy continues to try and ensure that the Crown must win at all costs.
Playing George Michael in the first act kind of brought us out of the storytelling. Anglophiles know what's about to happen and like the predictability, this didn't seem like a good fit within the original score we have gotten used to.
Is it just me or is everyone remarkably better looking on the screen, especially Charles! Dom West has a particularly chiseled face and built upper body for the King's likeness. They could have done better preparing his physicality or even the casting altogether here.
The 50th birthday as a device for the Queen's slow transition was a good idea but Charles's stoic acceptance of the Queen's decision not to attend is not how things really played out, I'm sure.
Some may like the nonlinear intro but this was a little unusual, I instantly thought things were moving too fast and going to end where they started in the next 60mins and was sad.
There is a little bit of politics but not the deep PR analysis of other episodes that we expect from Buckingham Palace.
The episodes and the pending locations lend themselves to gorgeous photography and production values. I'm looking forward to better episodes as things warm up!