The Crown Returns to the Top of Global Netflix Charts

The tale of Queen Elizabeth II and the British Royals has returned to Netflix for its penultimate season, and once again putting up big streaming numbers for the service. The Crown Season 5 debuted on Netflix this past weekend, taking the story into the 1980s and 1990s. After premiering on Wednesday, The Crown Season 5 quickly became the top TV season on all of Netflix, towering over other originals despite having a few less days to count.

On Tuesday, Netflix released its streaming numbers for the most-watched movies and shows from the week of November 7th through November 13th. During that span, The Crown Season 5 was viewed for more than 107 million hours, good enough to top the recently-released Manifest Season 4 by more than 30 million hours.

The fifth season of The Crown was one of the show’s most anticipated, as it brought the show into the modern era and features Elizabeth Debicki’s take on Princess Diana. 

The Crown Season 5 Controversy

There has been some controversy surrounding The Crown heading into its fifth season, as some believe people take the events as the truth of what actually happened throughout history, rather than a dramatization. Dame Judi Dench actually penned a letter to Netflix asking for the service to add a disclaimer to the beginning of The Crown‘s episodes.

“While many will recognise The Crown for the brilliant but fictionalised account of events that it is, I fear that a significant number of viewers, particularly overseas, may take its version of history as being wholly true,” Dench said. “Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series – that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence – this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent.”

A disclaimer was not added by Netflix ahead of The Crown‘s Season 5 debut. What did you think of the new season? Let us know in the comments!