If "all publicity is good publicity", said Town & Country's Victoria Murphy, Netflix should be "delighted" by the reaction to Meghan Markle's new show.
"With Love, Meghan" has been a "hot topic" on social media and beyond after landing on the streaming service this week, as viewers dissect the Duchess of Sussex's "personal tips and tricks" for cooking, homemaking and party planning. Who would have thought that "feel-good lifestyle content could spark such an explosion of backlash"?
'Accidental comedy classic'
Anyone who thought this eight-episode series would be a "smug, syrupy endurance watch" that "you would rather fry your eyeballs than sit through" was wrong, said Carol Midgley in The Times. "It is so much worse than that."
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The duchess gets a reported $100 million to "tit around in a farmhouse" draped in cashmere as part of the Sussexes' Netflix deal. Yet she presents the trappings of her "mind-bogglingly exclusive lifestyle" in California as though they are possible for any "working mom" to replicate "on a budget". It's enough to make you "retch into your (rosemary-scented) sick bag".
At least it has "the makings of an accidental comedy classic", said Allison Pearson in The Telegraph. But Meghan is "incapable of laughing at herself" in this "outlandish fantasy, in which a mother of two small children has time to make her own bath salts". Back in the real world, if she gave her "bleakly wholesome, additive-neutral party bags to some actual children", they would "tell her where to shove her manuka stick".
'Sweet titbits'
The "overly perfect presentation" and the "saccharine" tone definitely "isn't for a British crowd", said Sky News' royal correspondent Rhiannon Mills. But that doesn't mean it won't be a hit. "Love her or loathe her", people will still "want to watch a project that's had so much promotion".
The celebrity cameos won't hurt either, said Asyia Iftikhar in Metro. Chef Roy Choi, Hollywood star Mindy Kaling and Meghan's former "Suits" co-star Abigail Spencer are among those who join the duchess as she shares "sweet titbits" about her life with Harry and their children, Archie and Lilibet. To "see her wrest her story out of the hands of online trolls" is "heartening". "Goodbye exiled royal, hello lifestyle guru."
This show "may represent a last stand at holding on to her place in the public eye", said Variety's Daniel D'Addario. It is "a sort of celebration of all things Duchess of Sussex". Her "serene, unruffled world" represents a sort of dream, not least because it's not even shot in her home. "With Love, Meghan" is indeed "made with a great deal of love – in the sense that the greatest love of all is the one that a person has for herself".
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