As Ever Part 7 - Whatever, however, whenever with edible flowers on top

[TheWayTheLightFalls]

New thread as the previous one is full!

Season 2 is going to have the disaster tourism, isn't it?

Also, it didn't have to compete with any major new releases.

I do think that for NF, total hours watched and the likelihood of a subsequent series pulling high viewing figures will be bigger factors than a brief spot in the Top Ten.

Yes I realised that after typing it, of course - I meant youngest son - but by that time too late to edit.

Also, if Markle hadn’t liked being in the royal family (it’s not a life for everyone and starting a new life in another country at nearly 40 is something most people would struggle with) she could have just left with grace and moved back to California and started a happy, richer new life - without all the angry tantrums and smearing of other people. However I believe she needed to make herself look like the victim to gain sympathy, to seem the morally superior party, and so had to do this including playing the race card (especially at the high tide of woke culture of that time). Of course, during her engagement to Harry, it must have occurred to her whether she actually liked living like a royal in England, but I suspect she was probably so focused on sealing the deal when “you had a ring on it” to quote her strange interview with Drew Barrymore, that she pushed that secondary thought to one side. So she clearly! acted her socks off eg in the engagement interview, saying how great the in laws were, how wonderful the welcome, blah de blah. Once she had a ring on it, they all miraculously turned into the enemy, especially when she didn’t get everything her own way.

The late Queen had a hunch. She offered them a quiet wedding, a home in the countryside, for Meghan to carry on with her acting career, a low key start. This was turned down. Meghan wanted to "hit the ground running", enjoy the wealth, status and privilege. However, neither of them really have the level of intelligence, resilience and determination for public roles, so it went wrong.
I agree that she had to present herself as a victim, so the whole racism argument was constructed.
That the pair of them could lie so much still astounds me.

They definitely could have stepped back and lived a quiet life. The problem was the Queen couldn't allow them to monetise their titles and that's when they had a strop. Security was always going to be a problem as well. Protecting royals living in California would have cost the met a fortune.

Yes, she was angry that she had to send back freebies. She obviously thought it was the key to untold wealth. She had no idea she was a public servant. Which is totally not her vibe.

Ah yes, it was always about the money💰the power, the status and when it didn’t look as juicy as at first glance, well …. Still it’s worked out for her in one way at least (16 bathrooms 🚽 no less) plus she got a free mega-wedding and some fancy holidays, Diana’s millions and Charles’ $1 million clothes allowance. Every little helps.

Yes, I wonder what happened to that bespoke couture wardrobe Charles bought for her?

Don't forget she got her mitts on some of Diana's jewellery. Theoretically speaking, what would happen if they divorced?

Did anything ever come of the attempts to see Prince Harry's visa application? What would happen to all her business deals if the husband who she relies
upon for status is deported? Trump is so unpredictable ...

Don't forget she got her mitts on some of Diana's jewellery.

I read that originally H was to have Diana's engagement ring and W the Cartier watch, but they swapped. Charles and William must be glad about that now.

I have come to the conclusion that the pair of them do not care if they bend the truth as long as it fits the current narrative, their past the point of recollections may vary and emotional truth is as important as objective facts. Watching on Twitter Meghan describing her 10 years on the set of married with children alongside her latch key kid is baffling. The production must pay for researcher and the married with children story was common knowledge without the clip.

Does watching a disaster series such as this make one a disaster tourist?

There could be a job going MNrs …..I reckon someone on this thread would be a shoo-in!

https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/with-love-meghan-duchess-of-sussex-baby-talking-bfv00pk9q

‘With Love, Meghan makes an inadvertent case for a cynicism consultant in the TV industry alongside other newly created roles like sensitivity reader and intimacy co-ordinator. A cynicism consultant would be someone with a well-developed gag reflex who could strike out all the most emetic dialogue before it reaches the public. Just about anyone British would do. It feels irresponsible to have phrases like “Mamma moments” and “It just looks a little more darling” out there unchallenged.’

It is behind a paywall

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14480873/Netflix-bosses-worried-reviews-Meghan-Markle-contract.html

Netflix worried…seemingly

I very much doubt NF execs are 'worried'.

They have any number of shows on the go at any one time. Some do well, some don't. I can't imagine they thought WLM was going to be a massive global hit or get great reviews. It's just another show for them.

There's two very big differences though.

Firstly, Clarkson (and I'm talking about him purely as a TV presenter now, not his politics or his personality) has a down to earth rough and ready charisma and, crucially, is not afraid to make himself a figure of fun. Indeed I'd say a good 15% of Clarkson's Farm is Clarkson and the other characters inviting the audience to laugh at how fat Clarkson is, how unhealthy he is, how unreconstructed his worldview, and his woeful ignorance about farming.

It takes a special kind of charisma and ease with oneself to be able to invite the audience to laugh at you. I think Meghan would rather spend a year with Harry's old huntin shootin and fishin chums in a stone cottage in the Highlands than permit anyone to laugh at her. Or even give a wry smile.

Secondly, Clarkson had the confidence to give significant stretches of screentime over to secondary characters who were, in fact, more popular with the viewers than he. Kaleb and Charlie being the obvious two. Both fully realised human beings simply being themselves. By contrast, Meghan's secondary characters - her MUA, Mindy Kaling - seemed to be following a very close script and in Kaling's case, seemed actively nervous about departing from it. That's why their exchanges feel stilted and artificial; because they are.

I sense that Meghan is very, very uncomfortable with the prospect or actuality of anyone going 'off script' in her vicinity.

I don't know why Mindy Kaling agreed to this. They were not friends before this and MK is an accomplished person who does not need to be in a reality show. Perhaps she bought into the whole victim narrative and felt sorry for M.

I doubt it. I suspect it was a lot more businesslike than that.

Mindy also works with NF and a comedy she wrote starring Kate Hudson premiered on NF a few weeks ago. It did well and has been renewed for another season. Actually renewed, not just one season split into two parts as with Meghan's show.

So I suspect their 'friendship' was probably arranged through NF. Mindy did seem almost subservient to Meghan though, which is odd as she's easily the more accomplished of the two. Not sure how to explain that, but I doubt we'll see the two 'friends' collaborate again in the future.

I bet Meghan was horrified when she found out the queen was happy for her to continue with her acting career. The reason Meghan was casting around for a rich husband or a stint on lifestyle programming was because she knew that, at best, she was headed for Hallmark made-for-TV land. She was no Sarah Bernhardt, having her leg amputated rather than give up her career; acting was just a means to an end.

Meghan conflates giving gifts with being a good boss. That's what people who can't be genuinely nice do.

I have noticed that whenever Meghan's PR function is charged with getting a piece saying how wonderful she is, the people they get to give on record comments are a) always on the Sussex payroll directly or indirectly and b) only ever give examples of Meghan giving them food or other small gifts. Never about genuine acts of friendship.

I mean sure my friends and I exchange gifts now and then but the things that stick out, if you asked me why I loved my closest friends, wouldn't be about the gifts. I'd be talking about the time one friend left work early to come and help me leave my violent ex at less than half an hour's notice, or how years later I spent 7.5 hours in A&E with her during Covid because the staff were being unhelpful but she just knew something was really wrong, and I was advocating on her behalf. It's that kind of drudgery/unpleasant situations that really define proper long-term friendships, not the time she gave me Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy for Christmas and a huge box of Lindt balls.

Kaling's had a rough few years reputation wise. Not a full-on cancellation but it got close at times. Millennials criticise her for the clusterfuck that was Velma. Anti-racists hate her for her (alleged) anti-Semitic jokes. In her memoir, she spent an alarming amount of time talking about how awful Jewish men, and older Jewish women, are. South Asians say her writing of South Asian characters as superficial and white guy-obsessed is 'self-loathing'. Less tenuously, they also dislike her jokes about the caste system (always at the expense of the lower castes). Trans activists hate her because she likes and reposts JK Rowling tweets.

Some of the above is stupid, some is relevant imho (Velma WAS bad; Kaling DOES seem to have some sort of personal beef with Jewish people at large).
Either way, she's not got the pedestal and respect that she used to have so I can see why her agent thought that being on Meghan's show might be an easy and unproblematic way of easing herself back into the public consciousness.

How many times can one person say " that's so sweet" in one episode? 😬

@GiveMeSpanakopita thank you. I was vaguely aware of her but didn't know all of that. That makes sense now.