Creator Peter Morgan and the rest of the producing team for Netflix's The Crown have been fairly impeccable in regard to the challenging task of casting -- and re-casting -- the show's core actors, as the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II transitions through the eras.
And starting with his role as murder policeman Jimmy McNulty on HBO's The Wire, there's no denying the talent of Yorkshire-spawned actor Dominic West.
But starting season 5 of The Crown last week, which picks up the royal family in 1991 and carries them through the untimely death of Princess Diana in 1997, we're not sure that the 53-year-old West, a man versed at playing charming smooth operators, is the best choice for the more awkward and reserved -- and far more pasty -- King Charles, in his early forties when season 5 picks up.
Regardless of Next TV's misgivings, season 5 scored a solid first-three-day debut on Netflix, racking up 107.4 million viewing hours and becoming the most streamed show in the world for the week of Nov. 7-13.
The Crown was the No. 1 show on Netflix not only in the U.S. last week, but in the UK and most of Western Europe.
Notably, viewership of the first two seasons of the show spiked in September, right around the time of Queen Elizabeth's funeral, so this is a show with a truly global audience.
In second place, the fourth season of rescued NBC sci-fi drama Manifest grew its audience in week 2 to nearly 78.8 million viewing hours, while catch-up viewing of Manifest: Seasons 1 and 2 resulted in the two earlier campaigns also registering in the top 10 of English-language TV series on Netflix.
Solid results considering the tepid Netflix launch of Manifest: Season 3 in the late-summer of last year.
Meanwhile, leading Netflix movies for the second consecutive week, Enola Holmes 2 -- starring Millie Bobby Brown as younger sister to Sherlock Holmes -- garnered 62.9 million viewing hours, with the original Enola Holmes movie placing third among English-language Netflix films with nearly 18.7 million viewing hours.
The debut of Falling for Christmas, starring Lindsay Lohan, finished second on Netflix's English-language films list with 48.4 million viewing hours.
