Big news for virtual royal watchers today, as Entertainment Weekly reports that Netflix’s The Crown has set the actor who will, barring what we could only describe as a series of miracles, be its final take on monarch-by-marriage Prince Philip: Jonathan Pryce.
Pryce is fresh off his role on Amazon’s Tales From The Loop, and will take on the role set to be vacated by Tobias Menzies, who was, in turn, begat by Matt Smith. Menzies will hold on to the part of the royal spouse through the show’s fourth season, before handing it off to Pryce, who’ll join Imelda Staunton and Lesley Manville as the show’s latter-day takes on Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, respectively. And while we’re still holding out for The Crown to go completely buckwild and start running episodes set in the future of England, rather than its past—possibly with Philip as some sort of AI homunculus that Queen E-2 keeps around for kicks—the series is currently set to conclude under Pryce et al.’s stewardship with its sixth season sometime in the not-too-distant future.