Why The Crown ending at the year 2003 is a bad idea

The Daily Beast

Creator Peter Morgan's announcement that the Netflix series will end after five seasons, instead of six, makes sense, says Tim Teeman. Ending the show at 2003, a landmark Royal year, will allow The Crown to explore Queen Elizabeth II's 50-year anniversary and Prince William's early romance with Kate Middleton. Morgan has said he doesn't want to cover contemporary stories because it would be like journalism. "But ending the show in 2003 does mean the erasure of the slice of royal history we are living through now. This seems bizarre," says Teeman. "Practically speaking, this is a portion of history that younger Crown fans have lived through and seen. It is the most familiar, and also the most tantalizing to dramatize because it has been so bonkers. We will not get to see William and Kate’s on-off courtship and eventual marriage. We will not follow Harry’s many romances, culminating in his marriage to Meghan Markle, precipitating one of the biggest royal crises of recent times. We will not trace Prince Andrew’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein leading to yet another, still-evolving royal crisis. We will not see the “Fab Four” falling into line as a royal powerhouse, and then breaking apart—and the tension between William and Harry. We won’t see Harry and Meghan’s supposed isolation and upset within the royal family...Cutting the show off in 2003 also means cutting short a critical examination of how and why the royal family, for all its power and many advisers, keeps getting the handling of family crises so wrong."