There was one glaring omission in season 4.
No there were lots of important omissions....it really was a 'once over lightly' of the '80s in the UK. For example, Thatcher's relationship with Reagan wasn't even mentioned, nor was her utterly fateful discovery of Gorbachev as someone the West could do business with, no Cold War period or CND, nor was any of the economic stuff from Big Bang Dereguation to Thatcher's fatal misstep with the proposed Poll Tax ever touched upon.
Or think how little coverage the troubles in Ireland actually got after the first episode: no hunger strikers, no Brighton bombing of the Conservative Party Conference, no learning to live with constant terrror alerts and bombings, and so on.
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Misty (218)
3 years ago
I forgot to mention the Westland Crisis in 1986, which would eventually pave the way for her downfall. Michael Heseltine resigned from the Cabinet. It was an early sign that all was not well. The Crown did not even refer to this.
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swanstep (2616)
3 years ago
@Misty. I think we're in basic agreement about some of the Season's limits. For me, the important stuff left out also left some obvious narrative moves unmade.
E.g. 1, when we get to the CHOGM episode the show doesn't know what to do with Thatcher's support for South Africa. It hints that Thatcher's racism is the driving force but ultimately seems to settle for explaining that it's her individual selfishness and nepotism (in favour of her son) that was crucial. But it's not as though Thatcher was uniquely degenderate on this issue. The Reagan administration *also* shamefully opposed all sanctions on South Africa, and that's no coincidence! On many issues Thatcher just was a US lapdog generally (it partially explains her animosity to the Commonwealth - she loved instead the new Big Dog and insisted on the preeminence of the 'special relationship' between the UK&US) and she had drunk deep from US conservatism by this point and from its *horrendous* racism in particular. But having never so much as mentioned Reagan, the show was in no position to explore all this when it came to the CHOGM showdown.
E.g. 2, the show never draws any parallels between Diana's & Thatcher's (in context) revolutionary individualism and entrepreneurialism. (They'd both end up even more popular in the US than at home.)
I enjoyed the season (esp. the first 5 eps & the Margaret ep.) but its limits are very real. It was no masterpiece.
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