Ready to return to Rutshire? The top brass at Disney+ certainly are! With the first half of Rivals Season 2 scoring rave reviews and record viewing figures for the House of Mouse, and the second half of the streamer’s sophomore outing due to hit our screens in November, Disney is wasting no time in locking down a third instalment of its racy adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s ‘bonkbuster’ Rutshire Chronicles. Yes, Rivals has officially scored a Season 3 renewal, teeing up another helping of sordid ’80s-set shenanigans and scandal.
Rivals Season 2 — which goes deeper (steady on) into the ever-escalating feud between Corinium Television head Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) and the gang at rival TV station Venturer — may not have finished its run just yet, but that hasn’t stopped Disney from starting to tease Season 3. And it sounds like a quiet and peaceful third run of episodes isn’t likely for Tennant and the rest of Rivals‘ main players — including Alex Hassell, Emily Atack, Danny Dyer, Katherine Parkinson, and Aidan Turner — when they return. “As the dust settles post the scandalous revelations in Season Two, we see the stakes become higher and the alliances more fragile, with nothing staying buried for long,” reads an official synopsis. “New romances blossom, old flames rekindle and shocking secrets will be spilled in this third series which takes everyone’s favourite rivalries to the next level. In a world of power, passion and betrayal, everyone has something to lose.”
Now admittedly, as synopsis’ (synopses?) go, that’s all both pretty vague and pretty Rivals-y, but with Season 2 having done such a great job so far balancing the show’s more outré and r-rated elements, its comic stylings, and its increasingly rich character drama, the promise of an escalation in stakes and drama can only ever be a good thing. And who knows, maybe we’ll get to see more of Danny Dyer riding Snaffles (who, we must stress to the uninitiated, is a horse) in Rivals Season 3 — watch this space!
