The Duchess of Sussex has well and truly served up a saccharine souffle of self-indulgence in her new Netflix series that’s been all the talk of the town, says streaming columnist NICK OVERALL.

For those who haven’t tuned into With Love, Meghan, the new show follows Meghan Markle as she arranges flowers, bakes sweets and frolics with bees amongst other mind-numbing frivolities over roughly four hours of TV.

It’s all supposed to offer an up-close and “authentic” look at the contentious royal figure, who invites the viewer to get to know her better as she shares her tips on how to make the “little moments” in life more meaningful.

But if this was supposed to give us a better idea of who Meghan is, it well and truly does the opposite.

Everything about this show feels more confected than what’s baking in the oven. 

It doesn’t even take place in Meghan’s own home but rather a far-flung multi-million dollar farmhouse in California. 

Throughout the show’s eight episodes is a splattering of celebrity cameos who come to “hang out” with Meghan to essentially sing her praises.

Perhaps the most absurd moment of the whole affair is when she offers her advice on what to pack in party bags for kids at the end of a celebration.

Sweets? No, that would be too obvious. Instead, she suggests seeds that children can plant and watch grow.

I don’t know what kids are into these days but I can’t imagine a horticultural kit at the bottom of their party bag would be a big winner.

The series has been met with a meagre 2.7/10 score on IMDb, the average score of the show aggregated from thousands of user reviews.

On critical aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes it isn’t much prettier. Only 33 per cent of critics who have watched the show had something positive to say about it.

And yet, despite this appalling reception there’s already more on the way.

In a post to Instagram the Duchess of Sussex announced that season two would be happening.

Despite all the criticism, the talk that the show has been able to generate alone is enough for Netflix to call it a success.

A success they certainly need it to be after spending more than $140 million on securing their content deal with Harry and Meghan.

Only three years ago the Duke and Duchess had people around the world cringing their couches with their first Netflix series in which they moped about the hardships they’ve endured over the last few years.

It seems this new show has made a very concerted effort to offer the opposite tone and yet somehow it’s even harder to stomach.

Perhaps the talk is all they need. Many will tune in just to see if it’s as bad as everyone says. I suppose I am just as guilty.

OF course the main purpose of this column is to recommend good content to watch, so what else is making streaming news this week?

Subscribers to Apple TV Plus should definitely check out Dope Thief.

There are no shortage of shows about drug dealers, especially in the wake of prestige hits such as The Wire and Breaking Bad, but this one has an interesting twist.

It follows Ray and Manny, two best friends (played Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura) who come up with a bold scam to make a buck: pretending to be drug-enforcement agents to steal from drug dealers.

Gladiator director Ridley Scott is in the directing chair for the first episode. His ability to get adrenaline pumping couldn’t be more perfect. It seems Apple TV Plus is trying to tie at least one massive name to either the cast or crew of any new project and it’s Scott who has ticked that box here.

There are still seven episodes to come in this thriller series so time will tell if it can go the distance but the first episode of Dope Thief is a very promising start.