The Crown season 5 recap: The beginning of the end

“The Crown” has been criticized by some for making fiction appear to be fact.

Netflix’s incredibly popular retelling of the lives of the modern day British royal family is rife with drama - too much for some people’s liking.

Season 5 debuted Wednesday and it was controversial even before it premiered.

That’s because former British Prime Minister Sir John Major complained that a scene purporting to show him and then Prince Charles (played by Dominic West) discussing a plot to oust his mother Queen Elizabeth from the throne when Major was in office was a “barrel load of malicious nonsense.”

Esteemed actress Dame Judi Dench cosigned in a letter to The Times, calling on Netflix add a disclaimer to the series.

“No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged,” Dench wrote. “Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a “fictionalised drama” the programme makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.”

But the series does feature some history that is factual - even if it does have the tendency to spice things up here and there. Here are some examples, subtle and substantive, of where the show leans into actual history.