User Reviews

Barr a few interviewees, the series is of a very poor quality. Most interviewees are of no interest whatsoever, and even more so are quite evidently publicity mongers. There are far more interesting documentaries on the royal British family.

In the beginning, this series seemed well made, with nicely lit interviewees - mostly journalists and biographers - giving reasonably articulate and interesting accounts of their subject, interspersed with illustrative royal stock footage and photographs.

However, the budget for archive materials must have been somewhat low, as it quickly became obvious that the same clips and images were being repeated endlessly. This is a shame, considering that there is an abundant supply of such material, yet the programme makers obviously could not afford to license it.

Also, as the series progressed the makers began re-using interview material that had been previously seen in earlier programmes, further thinning-out the rapidly decreasing reasons to keep watching.

Then, in episode 5, a new interviewee was added who obliterated any remaining integrity the programme had left. Amazingly, amongst the journalists, biographers, and others whose contributions were, at the very least, statements of historical fact, with occasional personal opinions thrown in, we are now treated to the comments of a PSYCHIC, presented with as much seriousness and authority as the historical facts discussed by the journalists!

Since the sixth and final episode of the series is about the royal pets, I'm pretty sure the programme makers have completely scraped through the bottom of the barrel, and are now dangerously close to sinking their already flimsy ship. Overall, the series is watchable, if you have time to kill, but on reflection I wouldn't bother to watch beyond episode 3.