Rivals Returns With Three New Season 2 Episodes

Rivals resumed its second season on November 11 with three episodes on Disney+ in the UK. Disney also announced the return for Disney+ internationally and Hulu in the United States. U.S. bundle subscribers can find the show through Hulu on Disney+ as well. The U.S. November calendar lists the remaining release dates as November 18 and November 25. The new block moves straight back into the television fight in Rutshire. If the summer break made the feud sound like distant office politics, a party invitation in this town is a good place to remember what else is at stake.

The second half of a twelve-episode season

Season 2 began on May 15 and was planned as two six-episode batches. The second half covers episodes seven through twelve and picks up after the midseason finale. The break matters when choosing a place to begin. The return is set up for viewers who know where the summer episodes left the characters. Its opening run gives them a chunk of story to follow before the last installments, while newcomers can see how the original loyalties were built by starting earlier. The full first season is available on Disney+ in the UK.

The German Disney+ catalogue also carries Rivals under its original title and lists two seasons. It describes the series as a drama about Britain’s independent television business and the people trying to control it. That premise explains why knowing a character’s employer can be as helpful as knowing their family. A dispute over the future of a broadcaster gives people a public reason to fight, even when what they know about each other would be quite enough to start a row.

The television war leaves the office

The new episodes follow the battle between the television companies Venturer and Corinium. Declan O’Hara fights for Venturer, while Tony Baddingham tightens his grip and Rupert Campbell-Black has to reckon with his loyalties. Disney’s preview sets the action in 1987 and points to Bonfire Night, the Hampshire Hunt Ball and Christmas. That calendar gives the professional feud places to show up outside a boardroom. At a ball, people can see who comes in together. At Christmas, the guest list can say as much about where everyone stands as an argument ever could.

David Tennant returns as Tony, Aidan Turner as Declan, Alex Hassell as Rupert, Bella Maclean as Taggie O’Hara and Nafessa Williams as Cameron Cook. Hayley Atwell plays Helen Gordon, Rupert’s former wife. Rupert Everett plays her husband Malise, who previously coached Rupert in show jumping. It is a knot of relationships that predates the immediate battle for the franchise. Putting people who remember Rupert from a very different arena around him gives the drama a way of testing the version of himself that he presents at work.

What Disney has already confirmed

Happy Prince, part of ITV Studios, makes the adaptation. Author Jilly Cooper is credited as an executive producer on the second season alongside Dominic Treadwell-Collins, Alexander Lamb, Laura Wade, Felicity Blunt, Elliot Hegarty and Disney’s Jonny Richards. Cooper’s involvement in the credits is worth flagging because the show’s return can otherwise look like a new programme announcement on a streaming calendar. This remains the continuation of the adaptation of her Rutshire books, with the original competition for influence in local television still driving the story.

The production is based at The Bottle Yard Studios in Bristol. In a May briefing, Disney said that most of the locations used in the show were filmed within 30 miles of the studios, with filming across Bristol, Bath and surrounding areas. For a story about a broadcaster trying to speak for a particular region, that gives Rutshire a physical counterpart in the West of England.

Disney announced in June that a third season had been approved for another twelve episodes, with Happy Prince returning to produce it. That order gives the audience a definite answer about whether the November run ends the series. It leaves the more immediate question in the hands of the characters. What happens to the company and to the people who have put their private lives on the line to keep it going? The next two November dates are for the end of the current season.