Ten years ago today, The Crown invited viewers into the world of a young Elizabeth II, her marriage and the extraordinary responsibilities ahead of her. The Netflix drama arrived on November 4, 2016, beginning a television journey that would span six seasons and three leading portrayals of the Queen. For us at Royally Inspired, this anniversary also celebrates something closer to home: the people who found one another through a shared love of the series.
Our Facebook group, The Crown Fan Club, is part of that story. Co-founded by Royally Inspired founder Mimi Gill, it offers a place to talk about the drama and the royal world that inspired it. A release date could bring another season to watch, but it also brought a reason to gather and compare notes.
Three Queens, one remarkable television journey
Created by Peter Morgan, The Crown began with Claire Foy as Elizabeth and Matt Smith as Philip. Its opening season explored the early years of their marriage and the transformation of a young princess into a sovereign. Netflix’s original premiere announcement promised all ten episodes on November 4, 2016.
Foy was followed by Olivia Colman and then Imelda Staunton, each bringing a different stage of Elizabeth’s life to the screen. Over six seasons, the changing cast gave the passage of time an unusually visible presence. Viewers had to say goodbye to familiar performances while making room for a new interpretation of the same person.
The story eventually reached 2005, with Charles and Camilla’s marriage among the events in its final chapter. As Netflix explains in its account of the finale, Morgan chose to bring the drama to a close at a distance from the present. That leaves a complete series to revisit, with the early episodes now carrying the added perspective of everything that followed.
A whole season, without waiting a week
Part of the memory is how we watched. All ten episodes of the first season arrived together, with no commercial breaks interrupting the story and no need to wait until the following week to find out what happened next. For those of us accustomed to weekly television, having an entire season ready to play could feel like an invitation to abandon the day’s plans.
Streaming was already established when The Crown arrived. Netflix had released all episodes of House of Cards together in 2013, and its January 2016 global expansion announcement described watching without commercials. But the freedom to keep going was part of our experience of The Crown: one episode could become two, then three, with fellow fans still there in the chat room.
Watching together, wherever we were
Kari Page, our engagement admin, keeps The Crown Fan Club active with posts almost daily, sharing news and articles about the royal family as well as television and films about royalty. She also ran our live chat rooms for The Crown’s release dates, bringing members together to watch and discuss each new season.
At 3 a.m. Eastern, fans joined our chat room from around the world, pressing play in their own homes and watching “together.” Some of us watched all ten episodes in a row, with the chat keeping us company along the way. We were miles apart, often in different time zones, but sharing the same television marathon.
The connection between the series and real royal events also reached beyond the group. Ahead of King Charles III’s coronation in 2023, Agence France-Presse interviewed Mimi and identified her as a co-founder of the club, which it reported had more than 42,000 members at the time. Speaking about the approaching coronation, she told AFP: “It feels like we are living an entire season of ‘The Crown’.”
An anniversary worth sharing
Revisiting The Crown also means remembering that its private conversations and interpretations belong to a fictional dramatization inspired by real events. The history behind a favorite episode can be just as absorbing as the performance itself. For an anniversary rewatch, following that curiosity is part of the enjoyment.
Ten years after the premiere, the series gives us plenty to revisit, from a favorite performance to an episode we see differently the second time around. And in The Crown Fan Club, the conversation continues between rewatches, with royal news and television and film giving us new things to discuss.
Keep the conversation going with us in The Crown Fan Club on Facebook. Whether you are revisiting a favorite season or discovering the series for the first time, we would love to hear what you think.
What first drew you to The Crown, and which performance or episode has stayed with you? Tell us in the comments. No login required.
