Season finales: “The Crown.” “Hunters.”

“The Crown” (Netflix) Season 6, historical drama. Covers the Queen's reign into the 21st century and is set to include the death of Diana and its aftermath, the first meeting of Prince William and Catherine Middleton and the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. 

       Quiet, no overdrawn drama denouement. That’s pretty much how the royal saga ended. Focus was the painfully safe Prince William and his love story with Catherine Middleton, essayed with obligatory faith by Ed McVey and Meg Bellamy. Lesley Manville had a flashback interlude as a dying Princess Margaret, do they have to do that again? Vanessa Kirby and Helena Bonham Carter already delivered the message, with equal restrained gusto and decadent allure. Not that I am saying Ms Manville wasn’t remarkable as well, she was. 

       Season 6 is a “let’s get it done” OCD fix for me. I got this far so I had to last till it’s done. They could have upped the intrigue more by focusing on Prince Harry (the Nazi costume is a hoot) but hey just end this royalty picnic, okay? 📺🎥📺

“Hunters.” (Amazon Prime). Three Seasons. Historical conspiracy drama. Characters draw from a number of real Nazi hunters through the decades, follows a diverse band of Nazi hunters living in 1977 New York City who discover that numerous escaped Nazi officers are conspiring to create a Fourth Reich in the United States. A parallel plot element is the discovery of Operation Paperclip, the U.S. government operation relocating German scientists (many of them Nazis) to the U.S.

       Operation Paperclip was real. A secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945 and 1959. Conducted by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), it was largely carried out by special agents of the U.S. Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC). Many of these Germans were former members and some were former leaders of the Nazi Party.

       The historical pitch lured me to the series. Top in marquee is Al Pacino but although I am a huge fan, I already spent my obsessive fascination with the fine dude from Godfather and “Dog Day Afternoon.” As Meyer Offerman, Mr Pacino is The Same, nothing new.

       The “hunters” were clearly lined up per obligatory Hollywood diversity SOP though I don’t see the immediate rationale of an Asian man as part of the Mission: Impossible troop. The neohunters of the hunters are equally one-dimensional robots, similar to Batman’s arch-enemies. 

       Season 1 was fine, Season started to lumber, and Season 3, with an alive Adolf Hitler was silly–but the episodes about an elderly German couple who harbored and hit Jews in their basement was remarkable. That should’ve been developed as a series by itself. 

       But oh the ending scenes or the court trial was the most stereotypical, cliche-smothered court scene that I ever saw in cinema. Ah the rants and speeches and, oh okay, it’s done. 📺🎥📺