The Crown” has been criticized by some for making fiction appear to be fact. Netflix’s incredibly popular retelling of the lives of the modern day British royal family is rife with drama – too much for some people’s liking.
The Season 5 debuted on Wednesday and it was controversial even before it premiered. That’s because former British Prime Minister Sor John Major complained that a scene purporting to show him and then Prince Charles (played by Dominic West) discussing a plot to oust his mother Queen Elizabeth from the throne when Major was in office was a “barrel load of malicious nonsense.”

The series kicks off with the beloved royal couple heading off on what was supposed to be a romantic holiday, but doesn’t end up that way. Granted we have no idea if a young Prince William and Prince Harry actually did ally with their mom over their dad on vacation activities, but the show does a pretty good job of documenting how unhappy Princess Diana and then Prince Charles were. They cover it all – from Andrew Morton’s bombshell “Diana” book (which she cooperated on from behind the scenes) in 1996 to the utter cringe that was the leaking of then Prince Charles and his now wife Camilla’s salacious phone conversations that caused a huge controversy because of their infidelity.