Markle sparkles for doco
Harry and Meghan Mountbattenwindsor arrive tomorrow. I’m told that’s their surname but, with Harry’s older brother being William Wales, I’m confused. I guess it’s best to call them Harry and Meghan until Buckingham Palace sorts it out.
We prepared for their five-day visit by viewing Meghan and Harry: The Next Chapter (TV One, Sunday). It covered their first four months of married bliss this year. That means their visit from tomorrow will be the next chapter of the next chapter.
If you liked pageantry, smiles, handshakes, beautiful people and Meghan’s wardrobe, it was all there. Meghan and Harry was great entertainment in a stunned mullet kind of way, enjoyable because Harry and his Californian sweetheart are engaging people.
We saw them celebrate Charles’ 70th birthday, Meghan receive a coat of arms, the couple visiting Ireland, Harry playing polo and Meghan had her first sleepover with Granny. Yes, she who has her name on a banknote, and don’t you forget it.
We also saw the indiscretions. Meghan forgot to wear the right undergarments and Her Majesty’s cavalry was summoned to teach her how to wear nude tights. She also crossed her legs and we glimpsed her knees. Apparently, the knobblys are only seen in private or on Suits. Then Meghan’s dad dished the dirt on TV and became a Markle debacle.
Yet throughout the superficial coverage, their personalities shone through. Meghan’s smile was described as the Markle sparkle and Harry was a good bloke.
What seemed to be missing was a party for the arty farty. It was all pomp and ceremony. Are Harry and Meghan allowed to meet people of their own age?
It’s overlooked here. Why not a Police blue light dance where the royals can meet some of our fine young Kiwis in an informal setting over a Speight’s Old Dark. The Palmerston North women from The Block, Richie and Gemma Mccaw, a decorated soldier from Linton, Jono and Ben, the Nanogirl, and a tuatara from Wildbase Recovery would be a good start.
Could Meghan and Harry be given an extra day so they could recreate her campervan trip around the South Island in 2014? Those moments suspend the mystique and allow us to identify with a new generation of royals.
Masterchef Australia is over but now Britain’s Best Home Cook (TV One, Wednesdays) has arrived. It’s a tamer version where Mary Berry and her team challenge 10 domestic chefs to cook what we recognise as food. Their first attempt was a burger. Every variety of lamb, chicken, prawn, wild boar, pulled pork, turkey and Welsh rarebit was offered. My choice would’ve been a retro burger, cooked before the world smothered it in everything else.
Jocelyn Wildenstein’s had so many facelifts, they’ve had to lower her body. Somehow her love of plastic surgery meets TV’S definition of current affairs. Her appearance on TV One’s Sunday was justified because, while the ‘‘cat woman’’ was once a billionaire, she now lives on $900 a month. Her face has been tucked in more times than a motel bedsheet.
It could be the reason she found it difficult to talk or make sense. She’s engaged to Lloyd Klein, 21 years her junior, has a 32-carat engagement ring and enjoys wildlife and shooting. She also enjoys the surgeon’s knife. When she dies they’ll donate her body to Tupperware.
All of that added up to one of the most bizarre items on TV and put botox back about 10 years.
The most intriguing part of Bad Habits: Holy Orders (TV One, Tuesdays) are the bits you don’t see. Five party girls ditch booze, boys and cellphones and move into a convent to change their lives and find spiritual peace.
It’s true that, after a week, the disoriented girls made some progress. The five arrived with suitcases that looked like mobile homes. While their luggage was full, their lives were empty. They’d lost everything, including their moral compass.
The bits you don’t see are the relationships and interaction when the TV camera is turned off. What we see instead are staged sequences, filmed and edited to make the series less contrived.
I hope by the end of the month they make real progress but, strangely, the key episode has been overlooked. That would occur three months on when they revisit to update their lives. Did they return to bad habits or did holy orders turn them into holy boarders?