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Rivals Review: The Past as Science Fiction in Gleeful 1980s Bonkbuster

Rivals is a gleeful recreation of Dame Jilly Cooper's 1988 bonkbuster novel, one that offers the past as a kind of "Science Fiction."

Rivals is a knowing "The past as Science Fiction" where everything old is new and weird again. It recreates 1980s England from Dame Jilly Cooper's bestselling 1988 bonkbuster novel about ghastly posh people in the Cotswolds who stab each other in the back and have sex a lot. It's almost shocking to have so much sex in a TV show now, even a streaming series, where there's so much gleeful bonking in posh settings. Americans may be unfamiliar with Cooper's books, but there are generations of female readers in the UK that practically guarantee this series is going to be a huge hit. It's a Marvel Universe for British women – Cooper has written eleven novels in her Rutshire series, many featuring recurring former Olympian showjumper Sir Rupert Campbell-Black, the "most handsome man in England" and inveterate womanizer, cad, and bounder.

The story of Rivals is in the title: newly minted TV mogul Sir Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) has despised Rupert Campbell Black (Alex Hassell) all his life for constantly falling upwards and hopes to use his TV station to destroy him. The bed-hopping Rupert, now the Minster for Sport under Thatcher's government, falls in love with the earnest and guileless Agatha "Taggie" O'Hara (Bella Maclean), daughter of Declan O'Hara (Aidan Turner), Sir Tony's new hard-hitting talk show host that he pouched from the BBC. Sir Tony is also sleeping with Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams in her most substantial role since the end of Black Lightning at the CW), an ambitious American producer whose job is bringing the station major ratings. An increasing and escalating series of rivalries, betrayals, and sexual dalliances engulfs a huge cast of characters (with nearly half the cast having previously appeared on Doctor Who) that make up the whole village of Rutshire.

Rivals Recreates 1980s England in All its Awful Glory

This is a hyperreal recreation of the 1980s in all its ghastly glory, better written and made than any show could have dreamed of back in the 1980s. it's knowing and has a more cutting view of the misogyny and homophobia of the period than a show made in the 1980s could ever have made. An adaptation of Rivals still has to water down some of the more terrible parts of the characters since much of their behaviour would be considered assault or sexual harassment in this day and age, but it's more knowing and better written and made than any show in the 1980s could have ever dreamed of, especially in being more pro-women and pro-LGBTQ while also commenting more on the misogyny and homophobia of the period. Rupert Campbell-Black is a lot more awful in the books – and still has millions of female fans – and is toned down in the TV series.

A British A-List Cast Giving It Their All

And it's always fun to watch David Tennant play the biggest evil asshole role of his whole career as he gets more craven and desperate as the story goes along, and this says a lot after who he played on Jessica Jones. Aidan Turner pulls off a flawed, angry, but noble journalist. Bella Maclean has the hardest job in the cast in the most thankless role of Taggie, the girl whose moral purity captures Rupert Campbell-Black's heart in a problematic love story where she's young enough to be his daughter (spoiler: in the books, they eventually get married). It's Alex Hassell who gets the star-making part as Rupert Campbell-Black, the cad and bounder with millions of female fans, managing to take the character from callousness to soulful melancholy as he goes along (though the character is still problematic no matter how sympathetic he can get – seriously, he's horrible in the books!). Hardcore fans have quibbled that the character in the books is blonde and blue-eyed, but Hassell's dark eyes and features are better at conveying the mystery, charisma, and bad-boy allure of the character.

Hey Guys, Dame Jilly Cooper's Books are Funny!

What has always set Dame Jilly Cooper's books apart from other bonkbusters of the 1980s is they have always been hysterically funny. Her prose is a masterclass in merciless snark and social satire with unrestrained R-rated sex. It's what you might get if Jane Austen expressed gleeful horniness without the censorship. American reviewers, unfamiliar with her work, which has been a mainstay of British culture for decades, seem baffled that this would be funny. And yes, Dame Jilly Cooper has a quick cameo. Rivals is the first true adaptation of one of her books, and it captures the frantic, hyperreal absurdity of that world. No visual version could ever fully catch the sheer snark of the author's voice. Nonetheless, Rivals is gleeful, bright, and more fun than most series out there right now. It recalls series like Dallas and Dynasty in their heyday but with more satirical humour and knowing social commentary. It features more unrepentant, sex-positive bonking in just eight episodes than entire multi-year runs of several HBO shows put together and recreates an alien world that many viewers now weren't alive to live through and should be grateful not to. It only adapts the first half of the original novel and even ends on a cliffhanger where a major character may or may not be dying.

Rivals is streaming on Hulu in the US and Disney+ everywhere else.

Rivals

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Review by Adi Tantimedh

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9/10

An adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper's book that's already part of what's practically the Marvel Universe of British bonkbusters, Rivals is a recreation of the 1980s as a kind of "Science Fiction," presenting a world that feels alien by today's standards that's cringey, fun and full of class satire and social commentary, recalling the heyday of shows like Dallas and Dynasty but with gleeful comedy and more bonking than entire years of several HBO series put together.

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