The Crown will have a surprise sixth season, its creator Peter Morgan confirmed on Thursday.
The announcement came as a shock as Morgan had previously scrapped his original plan to do six seasons and to bring the hit show to a close after a fifth season, starring Imelda Staunton as Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, as the Queen enters her senior years.
In a statement posted on Netflix U.K.'s Twitter account, he said: "As we started to discuss the storylines for Series 5, it soon 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 six seasons."
Olivia Colman is currently starring as the monarch, a role she took over from Claire Foy's two-season run as a young Elizabeth.
Morgan had previously said the end of season five would be the "perfect place" to stop.
The fourth series will debut on Netflix this autumn or winter.