The Crown: Season 4, Episode 9- Avalanche

 "Most marriages survive because most people aren't fantasists."

Meh. I'll admit that this episode is as well-written and well-made as ever, but I'm just not invested in the Wales' marital problems, which I recall as tabloid tittle-tattle. Yes, Josh O'Connor and Emma Corrin are superb. Yes, we have an interesting love triangle with Camilla as a nicely nuanced third side, although James Hewitt is not sufficiently developed to make a true love rectangle. It's interesting to see the problem in the marriage is not so much the age difference but the fact that he's an introvert and she's one of those curious extrovert people, more interested in musicals and chart pop than in books and ideas.

There's a real savng grace in Anne though, who is fast becoming a favourite character of mine, the Princess Margaret of her generation and delightfully witty and wise in her balanced and human cynicism. The two highlights here both consist of Anne delivering some home truths- first when she pithily tells the Queen the brutal truth about the Wales' marriage and secondly when she tells Charles, equally pithily, to stop with the self-pity and get on with it. As the Queen says, the marriage of the heit to the throne "simply cannot be allowed to fail". Charles may be a self-pitying spoiled brat, but no one should ever be trapped in a loveless marriage.

Sigh. This is good stuff, I know. Charles in particular is a fascinating, nuanced character. I cant say this isn't very good indeed. But The Crown, over this season, seems to have developed into something that's, well, not my thing. I'll see how the finale goes, but may possibly give the next series a miss.