With Love, Meghan - the reviews are BADDDDDDDDDDD for Meghan Markle Sussex and Netflix

0:03 Calorogus Shark Media. Hello and welcome to Palace Intrigue. I am your host, Mark Francis. The debut of With Love Megan on Netflix's sparked an avalanche of commentary, with critics offering a less than glowing reception to the Duchess of Sussex's latest venture. While some see it as an earnest attempt to get a new chapter, others have dismissed it as a Gormleus lifestyle filler, with The Guardian's Stuart Heritage going so far as to suggest it might be the Sussex's last TV show. The Independence Katie Razensky awarded it a single star. Writing With Love Megan is queasy and exhausting, Visiting the Sussex's might not be a fun experience. The heavy blend of esthetic curation, inspiring truisms and those inescapable edible flowers might well leave you feeling a bit queasy or simply worn out at the prospect of having to adequately perform Gratie for all the thoughtful touches involved in Meghan's guest experience, Razenski explains, you knock on the door of Meghan Markle's Montecito mansion, or perhaps it's the stand in house rented for filming her Netflix show With Love Megan.

1:13 You were summoned here with a note written in immaculate calligraphy script attached to a wicker harvest basket teeming with fresh fruit and vegetables. Once you're inside, your host, impeccably dressed all in white, despite having spent the morning picking berries, corrols you into assisting her in an endless series of crafty and culinary tasks that are one part Pinterest, one part posh Blue Peter. If popping around to the Sussex household is even half as exhausting as it appears to be on With Love Meghan, the much vaunted lifestyle show presented by the Duchess in her first solo venture for Netflix, then surely all her visitors need to take a nap every few hours, and if they do retire to the guest room for a lie doown after their shift, they'll be greeted with a tray of treats beside the bed.

1:57 Meghan loves to create good morning and good night moments for her pals. She tells us in the first installments, they can expect to open their bleary eyes to give wrap snacks and cut flowers with love. Feels like a millennial blog come to life. It's the TV version of the Tig, the website that Megan launched and ran in her pre royal jobbing acted days, filmed with all the soft, filtered gloss of a center park's advert Each episode sticks to a simple formula. A guest either someone that Megan has known for a while, like a longtime makeup artist Daniel Martin met while making her short lived Spotify podcast, like actor Mindy Kaling, or admired from Afar like chef roy Choi turns up at Casa Sussex. They coup over something she's made earlier than they're recruited to chop fruit and vegetables for another marvelous culinary creation. Edible flowers are strewn over everything, even fried eggs. The telegraphs Anita Singh was equally unimpressed, calling it an exercise in narcissism, filled with extravagant brunches, celebrity pals, and business plugs. Singing tells us, you will never look at a turnip in the same way again. You will wonder why you don't have an enticing compost bin and have instead put up with that brown plastic thing from the council. Perhaps you too will start matching your outfit to the low crousette while being intentional, and when you put a cake in the ovenue will murmur as if to your most beloved child, good night, sweetheart.

3:18 Don't worry if you don't have a Montecito mansion with its own kitchen, garden, apery and chicken coop from which to get all your fresh produce, or an unlimited supply of rustic artismal tableware, even if you're in a little flat in London, Megan says, sadly, you can have some small piece of this. The format is this, Megan invites people to her pretend house. The show is filmed in an eight million dollar farmhouse down the road from her fourteen million dollar home, and they tell her how amazing she is. This happens for eight episodes. Critics were particularly amused by a segment in which Meghan suggested filling children's party bags with seeds for planting. Heritage was quick to mock this moment, writing, nobody wants to see Meghan making decorative lady bird crostini with Mindy Kayel with Love Meghan is the sort of gormleous lifestyle filler that, had it been made by the BBC, would be used to bulk out episodes of Saturday Kitchen. There was also much discussion around Meghan's decision to film in a rented eight million dollar farmhouse rather than her actual home. She addressed this in an interview with People magazine, explaining, I wanted to protect that safe haven where a close knit family and I love those moments putting Lily down for a nap, having lunch together, having sacred time together at the end of the day. Our kitchen is where Mamma just cooks for the family, and with a crew of eighty plus people, it's a lot of people to have in your house.

4:33 The hierarchy of Meghan's homemade jam also became an unexpected talking point. During a scene with Kaling, the actress playfully questioned whether her number jar indicated her rank among Meghan's friends. I looked at the label and it said there were like fifty, and I, of course, as a very hierarchical person, was like, who are these other fifty? Just having a lower number make me more special? Well, just having a higher number make me more special. Megan, laughing, insisted there was no ranking involved. It was just let me share them, and then people started to take it very personally. Despite the mixed reviews, Harper's Bizarre Bienca Battancourt found the series to be an enjoyable watch, praising it as a fine balance of giving audiences what they want to see, like gorgeous Montecito views, along with a peak into the Duchess's personality, while still servicing the viewer. The show's reception has significant stakes, as it may determine the future of The Sussex's one hundred million dollar deal with Netflix. Royal correspondent Shawn Coughlin of the BBC noted that the breezy commercial nature of the show suggests Meghan has firmly moved beyond any lingering ties to royal life. This feels like looking forward to a new future without any more haggling over the past, he observed. Still, not everyone was convinced the spectators. Alexander Larman described the series as Brand Sussex's final hope, adding there was a tangible desperation here, a visible sense of need and desire for this show to bring Megan back into the spotlight more palace in just a moment. The Irish Times at Power was particularly blunt writing, so beige

6:05 and bland it doesn't even qualify as a hate watch. Boring lifestyle tips from an individual who always has servants with them reach, including serving coffee to guests. Her crud de taise are crude, her homemade candles look like something from the homeware aisle in deals, and the banter between host and guests has all the spark of a dead battery on a frosty morning. The big conceit is that we, the impoverished viewers, can hang with Meghan for a few precious hours, and yet the velvet rope has always in sight. Filming takes players not in Meghan's actual house, but in some sort of guest mansion adjoining her property, and if there are passing references to her husband and children, we never see them on screen. With love, Megan is trying to sell us on Meghan's lifestyle without actually showing us any of it. Comedian Mindy Kaling troops in and helps Megan to make a balloon arch for a hypothetical children's party.

6:52 No children actually appear, nor is there a party. The Duchess ended the final episode on a hopeful note, raising a toast to her gathered guests, clouding Prince Harry and her mother Doria Raglan, saying, this feels like a new chapter that I'm so excited that I get to share and I've been able to learn from all of you, So I just thank you for all the love and support. With Love Megan now available for streaming. The question remains, will it find an audience eager for lifestyle inspiration or will it simply become another footnote in the Sussex's increasingly uncertain media future. And there you have it. If you'd like to email us, that address is the Palace Intrigue at gmail dot com. Please follow us on Spotify, Apple or the app of your choice and leave us a review at five stars. If you're enjoying the show, don't forget.

7:33 We have a new program out from Callaoga Shark Media here. It's called White's Smoke, The Path to a New Pope. Check it out. It's very timely and historic and a cool look at the election process behind a new Pope. It's available now wherever you get your podcasts. White Smoke. I'm Mark Francis. My thanks to John mcdermoy this palace intrigue and good terms