'The Crown' Season 3 Finally Has a Release Date for 2019

After nearly a year away, Netflix's The Crown will return with Season 3 in November of 2019.

The Crown Season 1 and Season 2 arrived 13 months apart, in November of 2016 and December of 2017 respectively. They came almost like clockwork, part of Netflix's slate of holiday-timed premieres for the whole family to watch. But then November and December of 2018 came and went, and there was no sign of The Crown Season 3, sending fans into a tizzy. Winter of 2019 passed without a new installment of the royal soap opera, allowing instead for Meghan and Harry's first child to take center stage instead.

But the wait is now over. With the fall of 2019 just around the corner, Netflix has announced the long-awaited next installment of the life and times of Queen Elizabeth II's reign arrives on Sunday, November 17, 2019.

The hold up was not planned. But unfortunately, it became necessary when the early month of 2018 proved what anyone who has paid attention to Doctor Who already knew. Recasting a show's lead, when the show is already running on a yearly schedule, is hard. Recasting a show top to bottom is almost impossible to do without a delay, if not an entire year off. The good news is the series succeeded in the First Great Recasting of The Crown.

Olivia Colman takes over for Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth, Tobias Menzies steps in for Matt Smith as Prince Philip. In the series' most ambitious move, the role of Princess Margaret will move from Vanessa Kirby to Helena Bonham Carter. (Granted, the two don't look much alike, but if you have the opportunity to cast Bonham Carter, you take it.)

And so far, Colman looks every inch the heir to Foy's younger version of the Queen.