Released a few weeks after the death of Elizabeth II, in the fall of 2022, the fifth season of The Crown should have been the last in the series created by British playwright Peter Morgan. Convinced by the density of the material available, the showrunner ultimately decided otherwise and re-upped for a final season, with the backing of Netflix (for whom the series is one of the most watched) and the promise that the final episodes would not reach up to the present day.

Until now, the series had shown a certain skill in its handling of reality and fiction. Since season 5, subscribers have been reminded that The Crown is fiction, but that doesn't make the writers' job any easier, and in the previous season there was already a kind of feverishness, no doubt linked to the way the series is coming closer to us and gradually competing with collective memory.

If the British press is to be believed, The Crown will come to a definitive end in 2005, the year in which then Prince Charles marries his childhood sweetheart, Camilla Parker-Bowles, and Prince William meets Kate Middleton. Deviating from its usual rhythm, this sixth season is being released online in two stages. The first four episodes have been available on the platform since November 16, but subscribers will have to wait until December 14 to see the six concluding episodes and bid farewell to the queen.

But first, we'll have to say goodbye to the princess. That's the purpose of the first part, devoted entirely to the accident that claimed the lives of Diana Spencer and her partner Dodi Fayed on August 31, 1997. The scene, filmed through the eyes of a Parisian walking his dog near the Pont de l'Alma, serves as a prelude to the season, which then rewinds to tell the story of Diana's last summer. Is it the dialogue in French, the sound of tires on asphalt, the camera blur? The result is a dud, and hints at the lack of imagination, both scripted and formal, in this first part, which is in the form of a long TV movie.

It's probably unfair to the series' authors, but the account of Lady Di's final weeks seems inspired by the celebrity magazines of the time. The princess in a bathing suit on the deck of a yacht, the princess chased by fans, the princess working on all fronts of humanitarianism, the princess who would like to be spoken to about something other than her ex-husband and her new lover. Only the scenes with her children, William and Harry, speak of intimacy, love and vital energy.

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