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What Makes for Good Drama?

[The six season 60 episode NETFLIX series, The Crown, was generally well received by critics and audiences alike. The first two seasons were almost universally praised. For instance, in a December 2023 article from The Guardian every episode of The Crown was ranked from worst to best. Eight of the best ten episodes were from seasons 1 and 2, as were 15 of the best 25. In the five paragraphs below I offer an explanation for these popular preferences.]

An interesting story needs a hero. Although far from perfect, a hero must be a normal sort of person, not someone who is abnormal, crazy, or insane. A hero must have control over many things in his story, but not over everything. If a hero had control over everything, then there would be too much hero and not enough story. There must be a proper balance of power between the hero and the world he inhabits, between him and the circumstances he has to confront.

In the first two seasons of The Crown these conditions are satisfied to a very high degree. The hero, or in this case the heroine, is the Queen. Though she may be, in the words of her favourite uncle the Duke of Windsor, “an ordinary young woman of modest ability and little imagination,” she’s also a dignified courteous woman who has had a very strong sense of duty instilled in her. What one critic said of the 2006 film, The Lives of Others, I believe can be said of The Crown, namely ‘that when done right, moral and political quandaries can be the most intensely dramatic dilemmas of all.’

Everything in the first two seasons makes it unmistakably clear that when faced with a personal or political dilemma, the Queen (for the most part) tries to do the right thing—unlike subsequent seasons where the Queen can do little but react to depressing things outside her control. It’s equally clear that trying to do the right thing is not a primary concern for her husband Philip, for her sister Margaret, for the Queen Mother, for the Duke of Windsor, for Churchill or any of the other politicians the Queen has to deal with. Of all the main characters she’s the least resentful, the least self-pitying, the least self-involved. And we can’t help but admire her for that.

When it comes to drama, we all want the characters in our stories to suffer—provided, of course, that they suffer in a way that suits us. And perhaps the most universally satisfying way for a character to suffer is by failing, partly because, artistically speaking, failure is considerably more interesting than success, but also because failure is a universal experience. Robert Louis Stevenson takes it a step further: “Whatever else we’re intended to do,” he says, “we are not intended to succeed: failure is the fate allotted.” But Greek philosopher Cassius Longinus consoles us with the dictum: In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail.

The Queen often fails, and she’s bound to fail because there are no happy solutions to many of the problems she has to face. This, for me, is what gives the first two seasons of The Crown their particular emotional power, and, thanks to the writer’s historical template, their uncontrived realism.

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Rather than portraying a sane hero living in a mad world, or a principled protagonist struggling to live up to a moral ideal or failing to find a solution to a moral dilemma, an alternative recipe for good drama is simply to dramatize many of the most important and common experiences of everyday life. This was done very effectively in ‘Wolferton Splash,’ the very first episode of The Crown. Even if we don’t have first-hand experience of many of these situations, the emotions expressed in them are comprehensible rather than obscure (unlike so much contemporary drama which lacks emotional clarity) and thus we have no difficulty in relating to them. For example:

rarely do two married people (or two people who are going to marry) love one another equally; the exchange between Princess Elizabeth and Philip the day before their wedding makes it clear that while she’s smitten with him, he’s not smitten with her; without meaning to, he chats in a way that conveys to her that he’s not in love, though before they part he feels the need for some loving gestures to compensate for his nonchalant manner; of course they reassure her for the moment (3:10)

a power-hungry politician—in this case Churchill, universally regarded as the saviour of the nation because of his wartime leadership—calculates how he can use the royal wedding to help him return to power (9:50)

a wedding, in this case a royal wedding celebrated with great pomp reinforced by well-known hymns sung by an excellent choir; but the bride looks ill-at-ease instead of joyful because her instincts tell her that the man she’s going to marry doesn’t love her as much as she loves him (11:30)

a bride so overcome with emotion that she can hardly repeat the words of her vows, and a self-possessed, almost cavalier groom who mouths some of the words to help her; meanwhile the egotistical Churchill embarrasses his wife by making audible comments during the ceremony (13:00)

having to do something you don’t want to do, in this case a nervous, publicity-shy king being coaxed to carry out his kingly duty of showing himself to the crowd who are chanting “We want the king!” (17:20)

the carefree happiness of a newly married couple, in this case Elizabeth and Philip living on the sun-kissed island of Malta, Elizabeth free of public responsibilities and Philip free to pursue his naval career (18:30)

having to rush to a parent’s bedside, in this case the royal couple rush to England with their children because the king is undergoing a life or death operation, and then wait anxiously with the rest of the family for the outcome (22:10)

the doctor coming out to inform the anxious family and being as positive as he honestly can be, but giving the minimal information that “His Majesty’s immediate post-operative condition is satisfactory”; everyone’s relief but Philip’s, who realizes from what the doctor didn’t say and from his expression that the king’s prognosis is poor (23:00)

Churchill’s delight at being re-elected after being tossed out of office after the war, but his wife’s misery at the prospect of what she’s going to have to endure all over again as wife of the Prime Minister (31:00)

Churchill confiding to his wife the secret that the king has terminal cancer; Churchill’s sense of self-importance, his selfish need for power, and his willingness to sacrifice his wife’s happiness for it (31:50)

the king learning from his doctor that he’s not long for this world (36:50)

the emotional atmosphere on the train where the king’s state of mind, knowing what he does, is contrasted with the blissful ignorance of his immediate family, except for his son-in-law Philip who senses the king’s true condition (40:00)

a joyful Christmas occasion is set against the sadness of the king who knows that he’ll soon be gone; his inability to control his emotions when some of his subjects are admitted to the royal gathering to sing carols and show him their love and gratitude (41:20)

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