Many of us remember what we were doing the night of Aug. 31, 1997, when we heard that Princess Diana had died following a car crash.

The sixth and final season of the Netflix series “The Crown” begins by showing an ordinary French citizen, out walking his dog, smoking a cigarette and nagging the dog to get after his business. What appears to be a high speed chase swirls past them, and grinding and crashing sounds are heard from inside a tunnel.

He phones the police on his mobile phone and tells them the crash sounded bad.

Flashback sequences show the princess coping with life as the mother of two heirs to the throne. Although she has made the elimination of land mines her cause, she is somewhat at loose ends. Her attempts to play a bigger role as a royal, including enlisting the help of Prime Minister Tony Blair, are met with rebuffs. You either are a royal, or you are not, according to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the final authority on all things royal.

Her Majesty is no easier on Prince Charles, future king of England. He wishes his mother to sanction his relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles by appearing at her 50^th birthday celebration. The queen says she will be visiting a Rolls Royce factory and can’t change her plans. Her sister Princess Margaret plays her usual stand-in role.

The first four episodes of the series take us into Diana’s relationship with Dodi Fayed, whose family life seems, if anything, more complicated than Diana’s. Dodi’s father is shown bullying him into breaking up with his fiancée in order to woo the Western princess.

After Diana’s death, the queen struggles with how to handle the death of the popular princess, leading to her famous healing speech.

Previously, I watched episodes of “The Crown” one or two at a time, refusing to be sucked into binging the series. But Diana’s story intrigues me so much that I gave in and binge-watched the first four episodes of Season Six.

A filmmaker’s version of the story can never be the whole truth, but it is a truth worth considering.

The first four episodes of Season Six are now streaming on Netflix. The final four are set to be released Dec. 14.