Narcos, in other words, is for people who consider Pacino’s Scarface a touch too understated. This drug trafficking caper spells out exactly what kind of series it is with an early scene in which two gangsters zip around a multi-level carpark on a motorbike firing a machine gun.

Two final seasons will bring down the curtains, and feature Imelda Staunton as the Queen, Jonathan Pryce as Philip, Dominic West as Charles, Olivia Williams as Camilla Parker Bowles, Elizabeth Debicki as Diana and Jonny Lee Miller as John Major. Foy and the rest of the principal cast have now departed, with a crew of older actors – headed by Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies – taking over as the middle-aged Windsors for season three and four and Emma Corin turning heads as a young Princess Diana. Most impressive of all, arguably, is Claire Foy, who plays the Queen as a shy woman thrust unwillingly into the spotlight. Matt Smith is charmingly roguish as Prince Philip and Vanessa Kirby has ascended the Hollywood ranks on the back of her turn as the flawed yet sympathetic Princess Margaret.

Tracing the reign of Elizabeth II from her days as a wide-eyed young woman propelled to the throne after the surprise early death of her father, The Crown humanises the royals even as it paints their private lives as a bodice-ripping soap. A right royal blockbuster from dramatist Peter Morgan ( The Queen, Frost / Nixon).

Netflix series