Season three of The Crown is coming in November, and there is now a teaser to show off Olivia Colman in action as Queen Elizabeth II. We’ve already seen a photo of Colman suited up as QEII, but now we can hear her accent and see some of her mannerisms and get a feel for how she will portray the middle-aged Elizabeth. Based on this one-minute teaser, I AM IN. There are two specific things that catch my attention in this teaser. One is the guy behind QEII who cracks the barest of smiles when she says “old bat”. I just like that reaction shot. But the thing that really gets me is the expression on Elizabeth’s face as she examines her portraits as a young woman and as a middle-aged woman. It’s the resignation that borders on sadness, and then the stern way she schools her features into blankness. There is an entire lifetime of experience in that one look. God Olivia Colman really is great.
Another reason to get excited for The Crown season three? Princess Anne. This is the season when the older Windsor kids emerge into adulthood, and while everyone is hung up on the coming Prince Charles drama, I am here for Princess Anne (played in the series by Erin Doherty), the royal most likely to solve a murder at a dinner party. There has never been a warier Windsor, a Mountbatten more mistrustful, than Princess Anne. This is the woman who, upon being exhorted by a kidnapper to get out of her car, replied, “Bloody likely.” (I hope, probably in vain, that The Crown devotes an entire episode to Princess Anne foiling her own kidnapping.) Prince Charles provided the most drama, but Princess Anne in her heyday was highly entertaining. She looks like she always has the most scathing set-down you will ever hear on the tip of her tongue but doesn’t think you’re actually worth the breath it would take to speak it. Between Olivia Colman’s general excellence and the debut of Princess Anne, The Crown season three will fulfill the entertainment quota for subtly sassy women subtly sassing their way through life.
