{"id":4226,"date":"2024-12-20T08:16:20","date_gmt":"2024-12-20T08:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/?p=4226"},"modified":"2024-12-20T08:16:26","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T08:16:26","slug":"fresh-humiliation-for-prince-harry-and-meghan-as-their-flop-show-polo-fails-to-make-netflixs-top-ten-in-any-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/archives\/4226","title":{"rendered":"Fresh humiliation for Prince Harry and Meghan as their flop show ‘Polo’ fails to make Netflix’s top ten in any market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prince Harry\u00a0and\u00a0Meghan Markle‘s\u00a0Netflix\u00a0documentary series on the sport of polo failed to make the top ten in Britain, America or any of the streaming giant’s other regional markets.\n

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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were listed as executive producers on the five-part series simply called ‘Polo’ that dropped on December 10.\n

The series has been dogged by\u00a0scathing reviews\u00a0from audiences and critics alike in the days after its release. The dismal ratings were first reported by\u00a0Newsweek.\n

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The show did not invest in a poster campaign, releasing only a trailer on\u00a0YouTube. Prince Harry, 40, who has played polo all his life, wrote a two-line statement on Netflix’s website.\n

\u2018This series offers audiences an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look into the passion and determination driving some of the world\u2019s elite polo players, revealing the grit behind the glamour,\u2019 the prince said. \u2018We\u2019re proud to showcase the true depth and spirit of the sport \u2013 and the intensity of its high-stakes moments.\u2019\n

Fans of the royal couple will be disappointed to learn that they only appear in the opening sequence and the final episode of the show. They were filmed at a charity polo tournament in Wellington,\u00a0Florida.\n

A source told\u00a0Closer, a British tabloid magazine, that neither Harry nor Meghan, 43, had much control over the direction of the program.\n

‘Truth is, it was pretty much out of their control. The bosses wanted the series to appeal to the masses and pushed this\u00a0reality TV\u00a0slant so it’s not entirely their fault,’ the source said.\n

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\"The\n

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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are pictured at the Royal Salute Polo Challenge in Wellington, Florida. Clips of them at the charity tournament were featured in the couple’s latest flop documentary ‘Polo’\n\n

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Prince Harry is pictured playing polo at the event in Florida in April 2024\n\n

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TRENDING\n
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Where is Meghan Markle’s cookery show?\n\n\n\n\n

‘Polo’ followed the lives of competitors in the US Open Polo Championship, focusing on dramatic events like an on-field injury and a rivalry between and father and son.\n

Eric Schiffer, chair of Reputation Management Consultants, told Newsweek: ‘It’s a pompous portrayal of privilege posing as a documentary.\u00a0It feels fake. You could almost see an ad, “polo the new cure for insomnia, brought to you by royalty.”‘\n

He continued: ‘They’ve made it the new frontier of unrelatability. This ensures polo becomes even less popular for regular people. It just reeks of entitled and is disconnected, unrelatable.’\n

Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the viewing figures for Polo.\n

A two-star review from\u00a0The Guardian’s\u00a0Stuart Heritage described the show as Prince Harry’s ‘unintentionally hilarious profile of the world’s stupidest sport.’\n

He went on to say: ‘Fixtures are chosen by popping confetti-filled balloons, obnoxiously privileged players weep in darkened rooms when they lose \u2026 this documentary about the royal\u2019s hobby is like a spoof.’\n

UK paper\u00a0The Times\u00a0said Prince Harry ‘made a TV show only he would watch,’ calling it ‘tedious’ and ‘utterly unrelatable.’\n

‘Polo’ didn’t fare much better with audiences, who gave it a 27 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.\n

This marks the latest in a series of streaming projects pursued by Harry and Meghan that have flopped or failed to find a consistent audience, despite Netflix inking\u00a0a contract with them said to be worth $100 million in September 2020.\n

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\"The\n

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The royal couple kiss after Prince Harry’s team won the\u00a0Royal Salute Polo Challenge\n\n

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\"'Polo'\n

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‘Polo’ is the third documentary from Prince Harry and Meghan to disappoint both viewers and critics\n\n

‘Live to Lead’ was their second documentary and was released in late December 2022.\n

It featured interviews with prominent world leaders and activists including late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and climate warrior Greta Thunberg. It currently has a 15 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.\n

‘Heart of Invictus’ came out the following summer and followed a group of competitors in the Invictus Games, a global sporting event for wounded service members founded by Prince Harry.\n

Like ‘Polo’, the Invictus documentary\u00a0failed to crack Netflix’s top ten list\u00a0and was similarly panned by critics.\n

‘Harry & Meghan,’ the 2022 documentary where the couple revisited their decision to step down as working British royals, was a notable exception to the years-long trend of lackluster releases.\n

It had 81.6 million hours of viewing time\u00a0in its first four days, making it one of Netflix’s biggest documentary debuts ever.\n

Throughout this year, there has been uncertainty over\u00a0whether Harry and Meghan’s deal with Netflix will be renewed, especially since their multi-million dollar Spotify contract lapsed in 2023.\n

There are still rumblings about\u00a0Meghan’s cooking show eventually coming out sometime next year, with it expected to celebrate ‘the joys of cooking, gardening, entertaining, and friendship.’\n

So far, there is no actual release date for the series.\u00a0A Netflix insider recently told MailOnline that the show may not see the light of day.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prince Harry\u00a0and\u00a0Meghan Markle‘s\u00a0Netflix\u00a0documentary series on the sport of polo failed to make the top ten in Britain, America or any of the streaming giant’s other regional markets. The Duke and … \n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4226"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4229,"href":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4226\/revisions\/4229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scenicwhispers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}