Netflix have found a formula for documentary that they continue with Harry and Meghan

There are many convincing and sympathetic aspects to the first few episodes of Harry and Meghan which has launched this month (December 2022) on Netflix.

The 'unprecedented and in-depth' docuseries, directed by Oscar-nominated Liz Garbus, is billed as a Netflix global event, with Harry and Meghan sharing 'the other side of their high-profile love story'.

When you peel back the production, we see two people who fell in love and craved sanctuary. It's hard to dislike them, certainly by the end of episode one you can only marvel the relationship survived thus far.

What seems a little disingenuous is the editing and production process. This is, of course, an orchestrating to the nth degree. The couple sit on a sofa in a living room flooded with natural light, like a scene from an aspirational home magazine shoot.

We see these same aspirational home settings for almost every Netflix documentary to date. See, for example, Three Identical Strangers, The Tinder Swindler and The Devil Next Door.

The slow piano music grates a little, as you can feel the intent to illicit emotion in the audience. Their story is powerful enough without the heavy editing techniques. There must be many people involved in the editing room. It won't be down to one person what the final product looks like, and so we see a combination of thick and fast Netflix-safe formulas.

The Social Dilemma, which is available on Netflix, explores the harm of using social media. It uses the same soundbite interview editing, where someone has one or two lines, followed by another person's one or two lines, followed by a series of images, followed by another one or two lines from someone else.

The result? A sense of being led somewhere quickly and never quite digesting what the interviewees full argument or point is.

Meghan and Harry appear in mobile-phone handheld footage. Their intimate phone footage was encouraged by a 'friend' we hear from Harry to ensure they capture their side of the story.

That does sound an awful lot like a commercial interest from as early as March 2020, just as they left royal life in the UK.

We've seen this with many other Netflix documentaries. The filler 'back-story' footage, which we get in the second episode of Harry and Meghan, can be forgiven in this second episode as setting the scene. But we have another four hours (or more, depending on episode duration) and we can safely assume it's not all relevant and/or it will repeat their story in various ways.

Netflix's involvement with production is not clear. It seems, to all intents and purposes, like they have a formula in the editing suite.

Can we have something a little more spontaneous? A little less cynical? Maybe the next time...