Check.

Popcorn?

Check.

Two-thousand-dollar Hermes Avalon throw blanket?

Sold out?

While some of us may have to slum it with a daggy old doona on the couch as we settle in for tonight's premiere of the Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, we'll still be doing so swaddled in that warm quilt of endorphins only genuine television events such as these can generate.

I haven't been this excited since we found out who shot J.R. (spoiler alert: it was someone called "Kristin Shepard").

Barring a few billion poor souls labouring under abject tyranny, poverty or medium-to-high intelligence, you get the feeling the entire population of the planet is gearing up to roll their collective eyes at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as they mount their latest curated moan about how unfair their lives are.

And you can't help but be impressed.

These days, we're used to querulous drones of arrogance and entitlement filling the stale office air, yet it would appear this televised super-whinge will eclipse the daily mewling of your run-of-the-mill millennial.

We may yet be surprised.

Britain's Prince Harry and his American wife, Meghan Markle, could well be using their platform of privilege to announce they'll be taking vows of silence and devoting the rest of their days to the betterment of humanity, yet, based on the two tantalising trailers doled out strategically in the lead-up to the series, it's looking like more of the same poor-us dross which Oprah gobbled up like the cat that got the cream when she interviewed the pair last year.

The teasers have been worth the price of subscription alone.

Classy black and white photos of Harry with a guitar; Meghan wearing a hat, Meghan wearing another type of hat, Meghan next to a pond, Harry and Meghan under an umbrella ...

Accompanying the images, snippets of interviews.

This from Meghan: "When the stakes are this high, doesn't it make more sense to hear our story from us?"

This from Harry: "I had to do everything I could to protect my family."

Newsprint of Harry's mum Diana suggests the pair will be equating their own - ahem - plight with that of the tragic "people's princess", who's death rocked the royals to their core.

READ MORE B.R DOHERTY

For an extremely wealthy global power couple (one of them desperate to shed a stubborn arriviste tag) presumably aided by well-paid advisers, the poor judgment on display here is breathtaking.

Yes, Harry is on the outs with his family. Yes, Meghan has probably been treated badly. Yes, the royals are an often nasty, bizarre throwback to a time of colonialism and cultural and physical appropriation, but if the Sussexes, as the trailers suggest, want a fair hearing, the mob has already spoken.

That would be the same mob which lined up for days to spend a nano-second with the Queen as she lay in state at Westminster Hall.

The thing is, Harry and Meghan may well have a point, several points, in fact, yet they've missed the main point: we won't be watching in sympathy, we won't be watching because we care about them, we'll be watching for the sheer soap opera.

And god bless them for it.

Despite the fact we're swimming in streaming content, it's still hard to find the unapologetic drama, the histrionics and silly emotion of uncut soap.

Netflix's The Crown comes close but its plot arcs, regardless of what the disclaimers might say, are restricted to real-life events.

Yellowstone, now in its fifth season on Stan, is a great source of soap opera, replete with the kind of big sky characters and familial meltdowns and machinations which take us back to those good old days of Dynasty and Dallas; a time when "Kristin Shepard" was a household name.

One of the reasons to watch Yellowstone is Beth Dutton played by Kelly Reilly. Beth is the hot mess daughter of a Montana ranch patriarch played by Kevin Costner. Beth fornicates and drinks and swears and fights and fills the screen with so much swagger, you sometimes have to avert your eyes.

Our own eldest daughter, who is discovering Morrissey and The Velvet Underground, and is busily converting her bedroom into something resembling a bong shop, laughs at me for watching Yellowstone.

"It's fun," I shrug.

Someone should tell Harry and Meghan.