"The Crown" salutes Season 5 - and changes its guard; Netflix's award-winning royal drama returns for two more seasons with an all-new cast playing Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Diana, Prince Charles, Prince Philip and Princess Margaret

Season 5 of "The Crown" will move forward in the same timeline as the previous installments, so we say goodbye to Olivia Colman and bow to Imelda Staunton as Her Majesty the Queen

The fourth season debuted in November 2020 and was well received, depicting the courtship, marriage, and growing conflict between Prince Charles and Diana Spencer

Season 5 of The Crown will focus on the turbulent 1990s, including the divorces of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, and Princess Anne and Mark Phillips

And season 5 will not be the last Creator Peter Morgan went back and forth about when he wanted to end the show, but in July 2020, he announced that "The Crown" Season 6 would be the final chapter

"As we began discussing the story line for series 5, it quickly became clear that in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of the story, we should go back to the original plan and do it in six seasons," he told Deadline

"To be clear, it's not that series 6 brings us closer to the present, it simply allows us to cover the same time period in more detail"

(So don't expect to see Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's courtship, wedding, and subsequent exit from the royal family)

Here's what we know so far about "The Crown" Season 5

Netflix has not announced a release date for "The Crown" Season 5, but filming is expected to begin in June 2021

Filming for the previous season took approximately seven months, followed by at least eight months of post-production All four completed seasons of The Crown premiered in November or December

Thus, our best guess as to when season 5 of "The Crown" will debut is November 2022

"The Crown" changes cast members every two seasons Olivia Colman leaves and is replaced by Imelda Staunton as Elizabeth II Staunton is familiar to fans of "Harry Potter" and the "Downton Abbey" films

Taking over the role of Prince Philip from Tobias Menzies is Jonathan Pryce ("The Two Popes," "Game of Thrones")

Helena Bonham Carter will be missed as Princess Margaret in the booze-soaked role, but we look forward to seeing Lesley Manville ("Phantom Thread") as the queen's sister

Sadly, we only got to see the wonderful Emma Colin as Princess Diana for one season, but the casting of Elizabeth Debicki ("Tenet," "Widows") is truly genius

As for Prince Charles, Dominic West ("The Wire," "The Affair") will reportedly replace Josh O'Connor

Casting for other major characters is undecided:

Other important characters likely to appear in Season 5 include young Princes William and Harry, Timothy Lawrence (Princess Anne's second husband), Sophie Rhys-Jones (Prince Edward's eventual wife), among others

Also, depending on the time of season 5 (more on that later), we may see Prime Minister Tony Blair

Season 5 of The Crown is likely to be set in the 1990s and will take place where season 4 ended - where the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana fell apart

The couple officially separated in 1992, a year Queen Elizabeth II has called "annus horribilis" (the terrible year) The year also saw the separation of Prince Andrew and Duchess Sarah Ferguson and the formal divorce of Princess Anne and Mark Phillips

The divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, already tabloid fodder, became even more of a circus with the publication of Andrew Morton's book, Diana: Her True Story Princess Diana herself recorded a revealing interview for this revealing book

The year also saw a devastating fire at Windsor Castle, one of the Queen's principal residences

In political and global events, John Major succeeded Margaret Thatcher as prime minister Britain faced a recession and a currency crisis dubbed "Black Wednesday" He also joined US-led forces to liberate Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 The peace process in Northern Ireland resulted in a cease-fire and later the Good Friday Agreement

Major remained prime minister until 1997, when Tony Blair became prime minister, and "The Crown" continued until Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris Season 6 will therefore address the aftermath, the royal family's initial response to much criticism, and how it has moved forward since Princess Diana's death

Morgan has said that the show will not cover recent events, so it is unlikely that fans will see fictionalized portrayals of Prince William and Kate Middle or Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's relationship

We speculate that The Crown will end in 2002, the year of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret's death This is also the year of the Queen's Golden Jubilee, which would bring the show full circle from the coronation in Season 1