Rivals is a series about the English aristocracy.

To begin with, the synopsis lies and promises a show about the feud between two English aristocrats. That’s probably true (I’m lying now, because the synopsis doesn’t lie), but that’s only a small part of what’s in Rivals.

Eighties, England. Declan O’Hara is a talented journalist and interviewer who receives an offer to move from the BBC to a new private channel where he will be given full creative freedom. It’s just that on state television he was constantly restrained, not allowed to ask sharp questions, cut out everything interesting, and Corinium and its head Lord Baddingham want to bet on Declan. He’s going to be the frontman, he’s going to be the star.

Lord Baddingham is feuding (moved on to this) with his neighbor, former showjumping and Olympic champion, inveterate bachelor and womanizer, Rupert Campbell-Black. Why they are feuding no one remembers, as well as they do not remember themselves. Most likely because they are too similar – both are winners, both go to any lengths to win.

Remember Dynasty? If you were born before ’90, you’ve seen it here before. You know Sorkin’s News Service? It starts like a typical Sorkin (rapid-fire dialogues, tons of irony), but it continues with a soap opera – sex, family relations, sex, power, sex, love triangle, ambition and sex again. A year’s worth of sex for this channel.

It is very difficult to fit at least a rough plot into a couple of paragraphs: there are a lot of characters and all of them are cute, charming and funny. So more to the impressions: delight. I’ve generally been waiting a long time for good soap operas that are full of irony and satire, not clinging cheap hooks. Rivals is exactly that.

The series deals with themes of inequality, aristocracy, women in the eighties and the meaninglessness of hostility, but it does so without the tired moralizing. Postirony in its purest form is such a fine line between seriousness and mockery that it’s sometimes hard to recognize. The aristocracy predictably turns out to be duplicitous and steeped in sin.

And the last important argument in favor of the series, or rather several at once: David Tennant in tweed jackets, Aidan Turner with a mustache and the doting Katherine Parkinson from Computers as the unhappy wife.

8.0/10. Rivals consists of a fascinating story, Spanish shame and… I’ve already written of what, the limit is exhausted.

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