All smiles in Meghan’s upbeat Netflix TV series With Love, Meghan

Blue skies, picture-perfect flowers, intricately-prepared cakes and Californian sunshine streams through the windows. Oh, and another celeb turns up in the kitchen.

Is that like your home too? Of course not. And that’s the point really. The new Netflix series, With Love, Meghan is about escapism and aspiration, it’s a glass of something sparkling on a grey day.

We see her standing in a kitchen, albeit not her own kitchen, gathering fruit and herbs in the garden, chatting with friends as she makes food such as foccacia, doughnuts and Korean fried chicken.

What you won’t see are references to her life as a working royal, her children Archie and Lilibet aren’t on camera and there’s only a fleeting glimpse of Prince Harry.

“I love feeding people, it’s probably my love language,” says Meghan, and she shows her culinary skills.

She makes different types of pasta, crudites, focaccia, frittata, quiche, as well as the aforementioned Korean fried chicken and doughnuts. This is mixed up with ways of making guests feel special, such as DIY bath salts, a balloon arch and arranging flowers.

There are occasional sprinkles of references to her famous connections. Prince Harry likes bacon, we hear. He also likes a lot of salt.

“Well I have a family, a husband, who no matter what meal is put in front of him before he tastes it puts salt on,” Meghan explains. “So I try to under salt.”

Friends drop in. There’s the movie star Mindy Kaling, who jokes about the weight of Le Creuset saucepans. Celebrity chef Roy Choi is there. There’s designer Tracy Robbins and Victoria Jackson who ran a cosmetics business.

It’s an eight-part ode to optimism, relentlessly upbeat and feelgood, where parents, rather than clinging to glasses of Friday night white, are standing proudly behind a huge fruit platter beautifully presented in a rainbow design.

It’s all presented in lush colours, with dramatic shots of the beautiful California coast and mountains.

Whether you love or hate the TV series will almost certainly depend on what you think about Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. And there will be the opinions of many on both sides.

It’s in an entirely different genre from the previous Netflix documentary from Meghan and Prince Harry, which raked over their angry departure from royal life.

Instead we’re into a zone of gleaming smiles in polished kitchens, with a soundtrack of positive music pulsing away. “Love is in the detail, gang,” she says. And “it’s time to pop a bottle” for a glass of champagne.

Meghan, 43, dominates every moment of the 33-minute episodes of this lifestyle TV series, whether it’s cooking, gardening, chatting, dancing. Or, as the series begins, beekeeping, as we see Meghan out harvesting honey, dressed in a full beekeepers’ outfit.

“It’s like also that reminder to do something that scares you a little bit. I think that’s part of it, but I’m trying to stay in the calm of it because it’s beautiful to be this connected,” she says approaching the beehives.

We learn about Meghan’s fashion style. She likes “high low” fashion, mixing up high street fashions with expensive designers.

And of course there’s jam. That was trailed as the first product of her lifestyle brand that has been renamed As Ever, with Netflix now a partner in the merchandising. The jam, presumably on sale soon, is spread generously through the series. “Oh my God,” says a guest tasting the raspberry preserve, and the plugs for the jam keep coming.

As Meghan is shown picking blackberries from rows of bushes she says: “This is sort of what inspired my jam and preserve making,” with picking fruit a “daily task” when they’re in season.

Asked what her favourite preserve is she replies: “My grandmother used to make apple butter so I like that, it’s connected to something sentimental.”

Does that mean that those busy worker bees in the Hello Honey episode are also going to see their produce heading for the supermarket shelves? And will the beeswax candles that we see in great detail be heading soon to retailers?

Mindy Kaling jokes about way the jams were first promoted, where celebrities were sent numbered jars by Meghan.

“When I received that in the mail, a box of your preserves it was probably one of the most glamorous moments of my life,” said Kaling.

“But then I looked at the label, and it said they were something like 50. And then I of course, as a very hierarchical person, was like ‘who are these other 50? Does having a lower number make me more special…”‘

Meghan reveals she saved the number one jar for her mother, Doria Ragland.

“I did save one of 50 for my mom of course, felt like the right thing to do,” she says.

For those watching with an understandable sense of nosiness, this isn’t actually filmed in Meghan’s own home in Montecito. “I’m gonna prep everything here as I would at home and then bring it back to my house,” she says.

There are occasional glimpses of another life below the surface. She mentions: “I was a latchkey kid, so I grew up with a lot of fast food and TV tray meals.” Even a domestic goddess had to grow up somewhere.

As a viewer, you want to pause and find out more about that. But the show rushes on. There’s a toughness here.

When the actress uses Meghan’s maiden name, the duchess speaks about being a Sussex: “You keep saying, Meghan Markle, you know, I’m Sussex now.

“You have kids, and you go, ‘now I share my name with my children’…I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me, but it just means so much to go ‘this is our family name, our little family name’.”

Watching it makes some questions come to mind. This is an intelligent, socially-aware woman in her forties. She’s living through a huge political moment in the US. What does it say that she’s showing us tips on being a perfect hostess?

And does this also mark a final departure from any prospect of a return to palace life. The whole breezy, commercial charm of the show is a world away from the royals. This feels like looking forwards to a new future, without any more haggling over the past.

Everything that Meghan does gets intense attention. That’s partly because of how she polarises opinion. People who think she’s wonderful and people who can’t stand her are all interested in watching more.

This series will inevitably get attention because of Meghan’s involvement. But will there be enough for either her fans or her detractors to get their teeth into? How strongly can you feel about a cake with a few raspberries on top? Opinions will be divided. As Ever.