The critics were swift, and brutal. ‘Unintentionally hilarious,’ said one, who half-wondered whether it was a spoof. ‘Tedious,’ was a further verdict – while, bruisingly, another just deemed it ‘tacky’.
These, then, are some of the responses to Prince Harry and Meghan’s newly released Netflix five-part series, Polo.
Little wonder that the streaming giant now appears to be distancing itself from the show. Indeed, there has been no serious attempt by Netflix to promote the series – something surely almost unheard of for a five-episode programme.
The company invested in no poster campaigns for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s latest project and its sole promotional attempt consists of a two-line statement from Harry on the streamer’s website.
‘This series offers audiences an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look into the passion and determination driving some of the world’s elite polo players, revealing the grit behind the glamour,’ says the Prince. ‘We’re proud to showcase the true depth and spirit of the sport – and the intensity of its high-stakes moments.’
Yet we can reveal that, despite the streaming giant’s lack of promotional zeal for the project, in reality the couple were heavily involved with the making of the show, which is part of the Sussexes’ much-vaunted $100million deal with Netflix.
Executive produced by both Harry, 40, and Meghan, 43 – they also make a brief appearance onscreen in the documentary – the series reflects the prince’s enthusiasm for this elite sport.
And, indeed, behind the scenes, both he and Meghan were very hands-on when it came to the filming and editing of the show.
Meghan presents a polo trophy to Harry earlier this year. Milos Barac, executive producer of the Netflix series Polo, says: ‘Prince Harry knows the sport inside and out’
The pair, I am told, spent many, many hours poring over footage, offering advice on what should make the cut.
Fascinatingly, the show’s other executive producer Milos Balac worked on the hit FX/Disney+ documentary series Welcome to Wrexham, which followed Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s takeover of the Welsh lower-league football club.
While undoubtedly a much less glamorous sport, it certainly made better viewing. Audience figures are a closely guarded secret, no less than four further series were commissioned. Disney+ is reported to make an astonishing £400,000 per episode.
Part of that success, as some critics have commented, is that Welcome to Wrexham had a gritty, underdog appeal which, despite Balac’s attempts to talk up how much the duke and duchess wanted to show polo’s more ‘down-to-earth’ side, is sorely missing from the Sussex series.
Although the duchess, in particular, was keen to highlight the fact that ordinary people can watch polo while having a picnic next to the match fields – a practice known as tailgating – there’s little getting away from the fact that the ponies can cost from £50,000 to £200,000, and elite players may use up to eight of them in a single game.
For his part, Balac said of the couple: ‘They were wonderful. They were extremely hands on. They really had a vision for trying to get polo to be accessible to a wider audience.
Meghan is being compared to Joanna Gaines, above, who has just made a cookery show
‘Prince Harry knows the sport inside and out. To be able to have him as someone to bounce ideas off and then also to get notes…
‘“Maybe if you edit it like this, the polo will just feel even more exciting.” Or “You have got to make sure that the point is played out like this because that’s how you keep it factually accurate.” A lot of projects have EPs [executive producers] who can give great notes, but it’s rare that you have someone who’s truly an expert in the subject that you are documenting.’
And it was Meghan, Balac said, who opened his eyes into the informality of the sport.
‘It was Meghan who really prepped me for how wonderfully casual polo can be. Sunday polo on Field One at the US Polo Center is a big to-do where people have champagne brunches and come with their beautiful outfits.
‘But the rest of the week, every polo match is actually so down-to-earth. It’s a lot of people pulling up in their pickup trucks and their cowboy boots, if not barefoot, with their dogs and their families and their kids to watch the game that they love.’ In the event, the series focuses only on the wealthy sportsmen who play the game. Perhaps, and not for the first time, Meghan’s slant got lost in translation.
It would seem that another reinvention for Harry and Meghan has not had the desired impact.
What a contrast to William and Kate who, despite their most challenging year yet, have been projecting an entirely more marketable image.
Indeed, the Princess of Wales was this week nominated for the prestigious Time Magazine person of the year title, while William has received many plaudits for his well-judged handling of President-elect Donald Trump when both recently attended the re-opening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
William also spoke warmly this week of spending Christmas Day with 45 members of his family.
Unsurprisingly, the question of whether Harry and Meghan will be welcome among the royal throng pulling crackers at Sandringham is something of a moot one.
While nobody is commenting officially – on either side of the Atlantic – the answer to that question is clearly ‘No’.
A royal source says: ‘The unspoken understanding is that an invitation is not on the cards.’
Next year, then, looks to be an uncertain year for the Sussexes, particularly for Meghan, who faces her greatest solo challenge of all – the launch of her Netflix cookery show and of her much-discussed lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard.
Indeed, after the apparent failure of Polo, so much hangs on her cookery show that some are calling it the ‘last chance’ for her to ‘save’ the couple’s lucrative Netflix deal – which is, after all, their chief source of funding.
One Californian source tells me: ‘It’s make or break. People say Netflix are exhausted. It’s so much work with her and, bluntly, the “deliverable” does not seem to be worth it.’
Another entertainment executive remarks: ‘Her show will have to be an enormous hit to turn around their deal and their reputations in this town.’
But if – and, as we shall see, it’s a big if – people start buying her crockery, biscuit mixes, rose wine and napkins, that might just be the sustainable revenue stream which the couple have been in desperate need of since Megxit, when, as Harry memorably complained: ‘My family literally cut me off financially.’
Well-placed sources indicate the launch of the show and the brand will happen in the first quarter of the year and, judging by the fact that it’s not part of any Netflix schedules in January, we must expect late February – after
Harry’s Invictus Games in Whistler, Canada – or even March for the launch.
A Netflix source says details of Meghan’s project are being shared with only a ‘tiny’ audience of executives in the US.
‘It’s a very tight circle,’ I am told. ‘Everything to do with her is kept completely secret.’
We do know the show will be very much made according to Meghan’s vision, all neutral shades and soft-focus camera lenses.
The shows – filmed not at her Montecito home but at a nearby mansion – have been directed by veteran Michael Steed, who worked with the revered late chef Anthony Bourdain.
The show-runner is Leah Hariton, who previously made Selena + Chef in 2020 featuring the actress Selena Gomez.
They have been produced for Netflix by The Intellectual Property Corporation, which is an off-shoot of Sony Pictures Television.
This is an interesting choice by Netflix as The IPC has also made a number of shows for Joanna Gaines, a likeable Texan who is the face of a hugely lucrative
lifestyle brand and who has just made her own cookery show. Sound familiar? Add the fact that brunette Gaines bears an astonishing resemblance to Meghan, and you can see why people have started openly comparing the two women.
It’s also fascinating to note that Netflix were desperate to sign Gaines and her husband, Chip, back in 2017. However, much to Netflix boss Ted Sarandos’s ire, they lost out to Warner/HBO, who offered them their own TV channel.
So striking are the parallels between the two women some believe Sarandos is betting big that Meghan will strike a chord with ordinary viewers like down-to-earth Gaines has.
They say the duchess will be his version of Gaines – although Meghan’s sophisticated vibe is far distant from Gaines’s down-home Texan charm. Sarandos said of Meghan in September: ‘I’ve been out with a lot of famous people before – the way that people react to Meghan is otherworldly.’
It will need to be. Because time is ticking. That big money Netflix deal for Harry and Meghan comes to the end of its five-year period in autumn next year, and Sarandos will want to see results.
However, well-placed Hollywood executives say that the deal will amount to nothing like $100 million because of the lack of content the couple have actually produced.
Notably, the Sussexes have failed to produce a single drama or movie – unlike their role models Barack and Michelle Obama, whose company Higher Ground has made the hit film Leave the World Behind and critically acclaimed Rustin.
Netflix have bought the rights to the chick-lit book Meet Me At The Lake for the Sussexes – an unusual move, as you would expect the producers to find the cash. But whatever stage the scripting is at, it has yet to enter production.
The same is true for the couple’s TV series retelling the story of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations through a feminist lens with Miss Havisham as the heroine. Again, it has yet to enter production. Neither show, then, looks likely to be completed or broadcast before the Netflix deal is up for renewal.
In March it will be a whole year since the rather underwhelming ‘soft launch’ of her lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard. So far there have been batches of jam and dog biscuits sent out to friends in numbered jars bearing its heraldic logo, one Instagram video in soft focus… and a slew of difficulties about its trademark with the US Patents and Trademarks Organisation.
Much hinges, then, on how the brand is received by the public. And sources are certain Meghan is determined to ‘own’ the project, as the duchess might put it herself.
I’m told: ‘She is the CEO of the American Riviera Orchard brand – she started out that way and that remains the case.’
However, my understanding is that many of the brand’s staff, who are separate from the couple’s media entity Archewell, joined the company directly from Netflix.
They may even still be being paid by Netflix, who are partnering with American Riviera Orchard, to launch the brand.
Netflix decline to comment in any way – and some sources say their link remains ‘unconfirmed’.
It is, though, perhaps significant that the chief marketing officer for Netflix, Marian Lee, follows the American Riviera Orchard Instagram page.
Another key fact to note is that the brand is being run separately, and by a separate team, to Archewell. Prince Harry has no involvement in it – it’s all down to the duchess.
With all that in mind, one can only hope for Meghan’s sake that she’s more at ease with pots and pans than polo ponies.