So we’re just now done with the four seasons of this show that has been out so far and this has been amazing every step of the way. It has also grown to become a particular favorite of my wife, combining as it does the lavish spectacle of the British monarchy, the sweeping sense of watching history in the making, the soap opera nature of its characters interacting with one another and you even feel less guilty about liking it too as it successfully convinces you that it is educational. Most of all, it’s fun to talk about each episode after you’ve watched it especially when you happen to recall a bit of your memories of the real events it is based on.

This series covers the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, beginning with her marriage with Philip Mountbatten and her coronation following the sudden death of her father. Over the following decades, it recounts both major events that affect the United Kingdom as a whole, including the downfall and death of Winston Churchill, the Suez Crisis, the Aberfan Disaster and so on, as well as the internal drama of the royal family itself. This includes Elizabeth’s own difficulties with Philip, her objection to her sister Margaret’s choices for husband, Philip’s struggles with raising Charles who is so different from himself and much more. As of season four, the events it depicts has progressed up to the deterioration of the marriage between Charles and Diana and the end of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister. Major themes throughout are the decline of the United Kingdom from the heyday of the British Empire and how it is increasingly obvious to everyone that the monarchy as an institution is irrelevant, out of touch with the populace and its archaic rules foster misery amongst the members of the royal family themselves.

The most immediately obvious reason to watch this show is because it looks so good. This is apparently one of the most expensive television shows ever made and it needs every bit of that budget to cover all of the locations, people, situations and eras that it does. There are some obvious missteps, such as the poor excuse of a stand-in building they resort to when trying to portray the Nixon-era White House, but on the whole it’s hard to argue that this show is an amazing spectacle, offering an incredible variety of sights and vistas to ogle over. The second reason is the unique way it combines soap opera with real history, and even better its history isn’t something drawn from the distant past but from events that are still in living memory. Most people will not be familiar with every detail that is covered here but there is enough there that seeing it again from this dramatized perspective and recalling your own memories of the events is very enticing and the addition of those other facts that you didn’t already know makes you feel that you’re learning something new. It’s grand, headily ambitious, and so sweeping in its scope that it’s wonder it’s become such a hit not just in the UK and across the whole world.

But this then raises the question of how true this depiction is and here the show makes it clear, even delights in making it obvious, that plenty of details are just made up. Many episodes end with someone in authority, the Queen Mother for example, explaining the practical reasons for some decision or other that basically makes them sound evil and no one could possibly have reported on. One episode implies that Prince Philip that left his mother in a convent in Greece and hadn’t seen her in years, which is patently untrue. Yet as others have pointed out, in not even attempting to be literally true, the series may instead be going for a kind of artistic truth that actually does capture the essence of what went on. So Diana and Thatcher may never have been together at Balmoral Castle for example, but pretending that they did allows for a sharper contrast between their two very different responses and helps illuminate their personalities. This is why this show is art and not a documentary and both have their proper places in our cultural landscape.

I do note that the tone of the show shifts over the course of the multiple seasons. It starts out as being extremely sympathetic towards Queen Elizabeth II, with how she was thrust into the role of queen without warning against her own preferences, and actually seems supportive of the monarchy as a stabilizing influence in post-war Britain. But by the fourth season, the series is all about how useless and meaningless the monarchy is and while the series still tries to avoid being too overtly critical towards the queen, it seems happy to cast everyone else in the royal family as villains as sympathy firmly shifts in favor of Diana. It still is rather grating that the show never calls out its version of the queen for insisting that the monarchy has a duty towards the wider United Kingdom even as it becomes increasingly obvious that every action and every plan that they enact is motivated solely by the desire to preserve and protect the institution itself and their attendant wealth and privilege.

Nevertheless it is remarkable that this series exists at all and that is only possible because of the strong right to freedom of speech in the United Kingdom and how the power of the British monarchy has already been eroded so much. The British royal family is rather unique in the world in how incredibly visible they are and at the same time how powerless they are in blocking unwanted speech about themselves. Anyway we will certainly be watching more of this when it comes out although I find it questionable that they intend to make another two seasons. This suggests that even current events will be game but I feel that it would be more appropriate to allow more time to pass so that the events fully play out and a more appropriate historical perspective can be adopted.