Just this year, Netflix has made me care about the intimate tribulations of wacky Chicagoans, 80s nostalgia-drenched kids tormented by an alien, and a bipolar actress’ wacky world when I wasn’t so sure I would, and now, the streaming giant has made me care about Queen Elizabeth II’s rise. With “world history” coded in American school curricula to really mean “European history,” I was frankly unenthusiastic to learn more about the reigning monarch. However, thanks largely to the lavishly-decorated sets + cinematic direction, the show is very pleasant to watch, and the underlying substance becomes more apparent the deeper into the show’s run I got. In fact, the politicking, all done thanks to centuries of decisive decorum + undemocratic umbrage, feels more aligned with the sly backroom dealings of Game of Thrones than the oft-frenzied moving parts of The West Wing. Claire Foy will no doubt snag mostly deserved praise for her half-stoic, half-staunch Queen Elizabeth II, with Jared Harris’ concrete solid King George VI + Eileen Atkins’ sassy Dowager Countess stand-in Queen Mary also commanding the screen. However, John Lithgow fantastically fulfilling the unenviable task of taking on one of the most prominent recent British politicians, Winston Churchill, is the real crowning achievement. Unless you count Matt Smith’s twice-bared ass. The fourth episode tackled a bizarre weather phenomenon as a rallying point for the characters to draw (somewhat ahistorical) lines in the sand, providing a bit more forward motion to a largely molasses-moving series. The pilot + third episodes were similarly well-executed, but not standout exciting from a storytelling perspective. The second episode, especially the flawlessly executed end sequence, stands as the best of the first four episodes. Though the show may not dethrone my other favorite dramas, even the Netflix ones, I am humbly suggesting this show’s extravagant praise is merited despite my own hesitations about the subject matter.