The Crown (Netflix)

Shame Coleman refused to wear the blue contact lenses (inside gossip for you!)

Agree. I still enjoyed it well enough but nowhere near as much as the first two seasons. 
I wonder it’s because as she becomes a more familiar character our expectations change as to how realistic we need it to be. I usually refer to the internet while I’m watching this sort of thing, and when we are shown the covers of newspapers or public events that were very well known I’ll compare the tv version to how it was represented in real life. S01 and S02 stood up quite well to me doing this “fact checking”, probably because less stuff was released to the papers in the first place. It didn’t go so well with S03, the whole Margaret at the Whitehouse thing being one example. And at the end where Margaret is papped while frolicking on the beach having sun cream applied by Roddy Llewelyn was very different in real life. Yes there were photos of them on the beach but stood rather formally apart having what looks like an earnest conversation. 
I’m happy to suspend my disbelief for a fictional account of something and totally get that the writers have to fill in the gaps, but this is being presented almost as history which sits less well with me. 
cant say I’m impressed by Imelda being cast as the next version either. 

For me as a foreigner it's all a very fascinating history lesson, educating me on things I hadn't known about earlier such as the Aberfan disaster.

I would agree though that I liked the first seasons slightly better. While I generally like Olivia Colman and think she's a terrific actress, I struggled to see the Queen and not the actress. here, same with Helena Bonham Carter, who seemed to be doing her usual brand of quirky. Meanwhile Tobias Menzies and Josh O'Connor really disappeared in their roles.

But it was also more interesting (for me) to watch the young Queen settling into her new life and role than seeing the middle-aged Queen... doing not all that much except being staid and rather dull. Again it were the younger ones, who were interesting to watch now, especially Charles. Could have done without the Moonlanding episode and Philip's midlife crisis.

Wonder why they wasted Charles Dance on playing Mountbatten - wouldn't he have made a terrific Old Philip in the later seasons?

Well to be honest, the Fox family could fill most of the roles but I agree dance a good older Philip. We are richly endowed with actors... 

Mountbatten's probably the meatier role though. Btw, this is the first time I've watched The Crown and I don't think I've ever seen a show where the main characters spend so much time sitting down (it really did remind me of a really posh nursing home!).

Have just seen episode 3 about Aberfan. Utterly heartbreaking. This must be one of the saddest episodes of a drama I have ever seen.

Confirmed Imelda will play the queen in the fifth and final season: www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jan/31/the-crown-final-season-five-imelda-staunton-the-queen?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2J_0aa8W7PB47wt4jHYY-Vm8iwjxp5lJfXdYIx8uq2NTRQjoI0pbHjvug#Echobox=1580483500

Not that surprising though - the current season debuted in the same week as the prince Andrew interview which rather knocked the gloss off, and the image of 'the Firm' has sunk lower since then, I think.

I haven’t got around to watching this yet (it’s next on my list, promise), but based on this I wonder if it’s going to stop just before Diana died? As it’s created by Peter Morgan, you could then attach ‘The Queen’ movie onto the entire story arc and then ‘The Audience’ as it in part carries the story through to the modern day (well, 2013). As an overall body of work it’s quite an impressive level of dedication to the one woman.

There’s an itv series called Inside The Crown which is loosely based on the Netflix series in that it’s picking out the events in the series and showing the real life events.

It's a shame but it's a very expensive show for netflix to produce and i thought it was interesting it didnt make the top 10 most streamed shows on netflix last year. That together with the fact the later years dont have as much material I guess it makes sense.

I expect it will finish in 2002 with the golden jubilee