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The long awaited Prince Harry produced documentary as part of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's $100 Million Netflix deal, premiered on Netflix early this morning to the tune of crickets of viewers. This morning the critical reviews are calling it “unintentionally hilarious” and "[a] spoof". Meghan makes a cameo in the final episode of the series which isn’t new news– yet she does surprisingly speak Spanish very well. Does Netflix's latest sports series meet its original marketing promises and rival the numbers of the show producer's other hit?
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When the clock struck midnight last night, Prince Harry appeared on Netflix again for his long awaited documentary about his beloved sport polo. The latest installment in the Archewell Production's content creation agreement with Netflix that produced Harry and Meghan, Heart of Invictus, and Live to Lead, now adds the 5 episode series to its published portfolio, following the lives of Polo players struggling with the complexities and pressures of the sport. After reviewing, critics are now calling it “cliche”, a “spoof” and a would-be prop in the background of an episode of “Succession”.
To discover the truth, this morning I painfully watched this show on 1.5X speed.
When you first go to Netflix to find the Sussex's project, you'll encounter your first challenge. The Netflix thumbnail alone marketing this show is nothing special, and frankly pretty missable. It doesn’t show any faces, likely because no one starring in the show is recognizable besides Harry and Meghan, and this really isn’t about them this time. When compared to all the other Netflix thumbnails, it is easy to miss.
In any marketing class covering social media and YouTube, the lesson about faces on thumbnails is foundational to connect with the audience and display emotion-- so this graphic design is a clear miss. This new release also isn’t on the home page of Netflix, so the launch has been met with very little fanfare even from its own platform, besides the one trailer posted a month ago to the tune of not even breaking 150,000 views…. We routinely get more views here on The Swish.
Show runner Milos Balac, who was also behind famed sports documentary series Welcome to Wrexham, is clearly trying to capture lightning in a bottle again with the sports series that has seen huge success on Hulu from the star power of Ryan Reynolds learning to run the third oldest professional football club in the world. With celebrity Ryan Reynolds and national love for Wrexham baked in, Polo had a lot of ground to make up already to compete with their success. Welcome to Wrexham has been renewed for a fourth season, while it is unlikely that Polo will have another shot.
The Polo story follows the previously unknown stars of polo who take the U.S. Open of Polo incredibly seriously, and deal with the ins and outs of family drama. The dangers of polo present several “human connection” stories, but we really just see the main character crying in the dark muttering the word “win” after he lost a match… not to mention he wasn’t around during his wife’s baby shower. The main star, by the way, is a thrice married man who admits to having anger issues and cheating on his exes. He even gets so angry he punches through a wall…. yikes.
Nacho also makes an appearance, who you may remember as promoting Meghan’s illusive jars of jam and dog treats over the summer, exactly when Princess Catherine re-appeared publicly during her cancer battle, to be precise.
The entire series comes off like Love Island, or some other dramatic reality TV show that is so far displaced from the realities and struggles of the real world. There is little, if any, reflection of the “human connection” themes that Harry and Meghan promised when starting Archewell Productions, but frankly all that is a lot of “pay to play” verbiage anyways.
In the first episode's own words, “polo isn’t a sport, its a lifestyle”, but the lifestyle example here is comedic. They talk about the women putting on fascinators acting like they are at a British garden party (is this why Meghan and Harry like it?) and how they love to look cute and drink a lot. Despite all the glamour, Meghan sat and watched from the back of a car, which is a very different seat from the royal box at Wimbledon.
Meghan and Harry only made a cameo in the very last episode where he played a charity match for Sentebale, the charity Harry founded in 2006 for African children struggling with HIV and AIDS. This appearance was covered in the press back in April, coinciding with headlines that Meghan had hired a brand new stylist that dressed her in a white pants-dress with a deep V neck.
After fast forwarding through several of the matches and cringing at the bad acting, it's apparent to me that Polo won’t be a hit. People don’t already resonate with the sport, like they do football, not to mention the producers (and their cameos) already aren’t well liked, and the stars are un-relatable and unknown. The production's efforts to make Polo a sport not just for the rich is backfiring comically; imagine this might as well be a yachting drama about a speed and luxury competition, complete with a meltdown about who has the best caviar. This lifestyle is not something the average Netflix subscriber won't participate in… not to mention the animal cruelty this is bringing to the forefront of conversation once again.
The Polo show runner shared in an interview with Variety today that the Duke and Duchess were very hands-on with this project, and that they were really the ones with the “vision” to bring it all together. If thats true, then this is a poor contribution to their portfolio. Maybe because it has only been on Netflix for a little over 12 hours things will turn around as more press comes in, but judging by this launch, its unlikely.
It is true that many people watch Housewives of Beverly Hills and other extraordinary reality TV because its a bit of escapism, but considering the pacing, self-obsessed characters, and the overall hunger for valuable content in culture, I would venture to guess this is the end of the road for Harry and Meghan's Polo. There is no real comic relief, new personalities or memorable, even meme-worthy moments. Just rich people living the "lifestyle" with connections to Netflix to air it. We hunger for truly rich and meaningful storytelling in culture. The same stories are being told over and over again with commercial installments added for the bottom dollar alone. If there is any inspiration from this series, it should be that we need to make storytelling great again, not the hobbies of the rich and famous. If this is the same approach taken to Meghan's new cooking show with Netflix set to air next year, things aren't set for success.
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