THE CROWN RETURNS

Netflix, friday 8 december

At £10million per episode, and with six seasons and 60 episodes planned, The Crown is thought to be the most expensive TV series ever made. So, as the second series arrives, Netflix needs it to be a success. Of course, Netflix measures success differently to the way traditional TV channels do, and the streaming service – currently with a worldwide subscriber base of 110million – never reveals how many people are watching its shows.

But The Crown is designed to boost its high-end appeal, and with series one achieving glowing reviews and a clutch of awards nominations, it’s already well on its way to achieving its goals. But where does it go from here?

Season one ended with Winston Churchill being replaced by Anthony Eden as Prime Minister, and the start of the infamous Suez crisis, due to a dispute with the Egyptian president. In the Queen’s private life, her relationship with Philip got significantly strained.

From Suez to the ’60S

Season two picks up that strand immediately, even alluding to the Duke of Edinburgh having affairs. The trajectory of these ten episodes will cover events up to the Profumo scandal in the early ’60s, and the subsequent resignation of then-prime Minister Harold Macmillan (Anton Lesser). As well as keeping up with the affairs of state and Queen Elizabeth’s marriage problems, the series also interweaves coverage of her rebellious sister Princess Margaret (the superb Vanessa Kirby) and her colourful personal life. the margaret Show Margaret marries handsome photographer Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-jones (Matthew Goode), and the scenes between the royal sisters are a highlight, with the Queen getting a tad resentful that Margaret has such an indiscreet lifestyle.

All in all, it’s fun to watch what writer Peter Morgan speculates was going on behind the Queen’s closed doors, and it rings cunningly true.