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Prince Harry’s Netflix show polo failed to make the top 10 list in the UK, America or worldwide despite harsh criticism from reviewers.

The five-part series dropped on Tuesday last week, meaning it missed just one day of the weekly chart from December 9-15.

poloHowever, it did not make the Netflix charts in the country where Harry was born, in his adopted home of America, around the world, or in any other country Newsweek checked.

Spy thriller Black pigeons topped the global list with 14.6 million views Jamie Foxx: What happened was… to 8.2 million and Not a good deed to 6 million.

Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey? came in 10th place with 1.8 million views, suggesting Harry’s show was somewhere behind.

Why it matters

Harry and Meghan Markle signed with the streaming giant in September 2020, when they were still rising stars living their post-royal lives in the California sun.

It took another two years before they presented their first project. Harry and Meghanwhich revisited the royal bombshells they first dropped during their Oprah Winfrey interview in 2021.

Although this project was commercially successful, they had difficulty finding a large audience for follow-up shows Live to lead And Heart of Invictus, despite the huge sums of money promised by Netflix.

First reviews of Harry’s latest offering, poloheaped ridicule on the five-part series, a look into the world of a sport the prince has played his entire life.

And now that the Netflix top ten charts have been updated, it looks like their latest work will actually spend its hour strutting and teasing on stage and then being heard no more.

What you should know

polo chronicles the lives of competitors at the US Open and includes some moments of high drama, including an on-court injury and a rivalry between a father and his son.

However, fans of Harry and Meghan will find little of the couple in the series, as they only appear in the opening sequence and the final episode.

Her on-screen involvement is limited to a charity polo tournament, the Royal Salute Polo Challenge in Wellington, Florida, which raised money for Harry’s charity Sentebale.

Harry was recorded briefly chatting with teammate Adolfo Cambiaso, before Meghan had a brief conversation with him in Spanish about briefly living in his native Argentina when she was younger.

What people say

Eric Schiffer, Chairman of Reputation Management Consultants, recently said: Newsweek: “It’s a pompous display of privilege masquerading as a documentary.”

“It feels wrong. You could almost see an advertisement: ‘Polo, the new cure for insomnia, presented by royalty.’

“They have made it the new frontier of incomprehensibility. This ensures that polo becomes even less popular among regular people. It just reeks of entitlement and is disjointed, disjointed.”

A two star rating in The Guardian described Polo as “unintentionally hilarious” and added: “Disgustingly privileged players cry in darkened rooms when they lose… this documentary about the royal hobby is like a parody.”

“Polo is the stupidest and most vile sport known to mankind,” it continued. “It’s the playground of the rich.

“It’s a sport in which dates are chosen by popping confetti-filled balloons, like a nightmarish gender reveal party.”

“It requires incredible wealth, which is usually inherited, meaning you could pour a bucket of paint over the entire sport and not hit a single person who even came close to qualifying as an outsider.”

“It’s a show about privileged people that shows us exactly how privileged they are, which means there’s not a lot of drama.”

It didn’t fare much better in the British broadsheet The times: “Prince Harry made a TV show that only he would watch.”

“You can’t shake the feeling that you’re looking at the equivalent of a big, expensive coffee table book.

“In The Last DanceThere was a good chance that viewers knew the major basketball superstars, and even if they didn’t, a palpable sense of sports history was at stake.

“The series Welcome to WrexhamThe film, which focused on Wrexham FC, was about the pride of a town and achieving the dream.

“Here, despite the efforts of showrunner Milos Balac, who also produced Welcome to Wrexhamit’s simply impossible to develop the same rapport with the slim, tanned, sports car-driving polo players, despite the lurking theme of demanding fathers.

“Although much of it is filmed through a ‘truthful and relatable lens,’ there is a touch of mischief missing. Still, if you were, say, Prince Harry, it would undoubtedly be the most compelling thing on television.”

What happens next

The Netflix contract between Prince Harry and Meghan is expected to expire next year, and a Meghan lifestyle show is still in preparation.

In April, the streaming giant said the series “celebrates the joys of cooking, gardening, entertainment and friendship.”

There were also reports that Harry and Meghan were adapting Carley Fortune’s hit romance novel Meet me at the lakeis set in Canada, where Meghan lived during filming Suits.

There is very little news about the project, there are no reports about the cast or release date.

While the Sussexes love a stealth drop, the couple has never publicly commented on the reports involving them, although Polo and Meghan’s lifestyle show was confirmed in April.

Fans might therefore be wondering if this is the case Meet me at the lake is actually on its way to Netflix or not.

However, that would undoubtedly be a shame for Fortune, which said back in 2023: “I am very pleased to be working with Netflix and Archewell.” Meet me at the lake on the screen.”

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweekbased in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and continue reading his stories Newsweek‘S The Royals’ Facebook page.

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