It's been a fixture of Meghan Markle's stint as an extended member of the Windsor royal family that she's been working in the background on media projects for much of the time. Few of these seem to have come to fruition, but now Netflix has at least one that's actually ready for public consumption.
With Love, Meghan promises to show us a caring and tender side to the world's most famous Meghan, but it's fair to say the show's first trailer hasn't got the reaction the streamer would have hoped for. It's proved quite a divisive watch, despite its extremely mild vibes.
The trailer sketches out a slightly unclear picture of what the show itself will actually offer. It looks like we'll get a mixture of tutorials and segments showing us how Meghan likes to cook, make drinks, garden and even decorate in thoughtful ways. She'll be joined by guests including experts in those areas, but also some of her friends.
Checking the comments under the trailer, there's a lot of vitriol flying around about a character who (it's fair to say) has been much maligned by at least one big section of the media. One commenter summed things up and wrote: "These comments have taken a VERY ordinary trailer and elevated it".
I don't think I need to delve into what some of the more furious comments actually say, since plenty of them feel almost legally actionable, but a few are pretty funny. One sarcastic viewer said: "The problem here is that everything comes across as contrived, things just don’t align."
Underlining that lack of alignment, the trailer ends with a release date that has now been shelved. The show was due to come out on 15 January, this week, but will now premiere on 4 March instead. A statement from Meghan said that the show is a love letter to Southern California, and went on: "I'm thankful to my partners at Netflix for supporting me in delaying the launch, as we focus on the needs of those impacted by the wildfires in my home state of California".
That seems relatively laudable, or at least fairly unremarkable to me, but it's prompted another wave of backlash as angry people claim it's a publicity grab. This is one of those areas where there's no winning, but Netflix will presumably be hoping that it all results in good viewer numbers come March, as it fights for the top spot in the rankings of the best streaming services.
