'Rivals' Will Drop In on Hulu & Disney+ in Mid-October

It's the last days of summer in Scotland, and the Edinburgh Film Festival is in full swing with film debuts and TV news. Netflix isn't the only one rolling out its highest-end U.K. series for the back half of 2024. Disney+ also turned up with its A-list ensemble series, Rivals, though, unlike its tech company competition, the House of Mouse has to hope the series will hit big enough on at least one side of the pond to earn a second season. Considering the material, this may have to be a grassroots effort for Americans, as Hulu seems perplexed on how to market a "bonkbuster."

Rivals is based on the Jilly Cooper novel of the same name, the second installment in her 11-books-and-counting Rutshire Chronicles. (Though her fellow 1980s contemporaries like Judith Kratz are better known, the Rivals installment of the Rutshire Chronicles initially caused British writer Sue Limb to coin the term in the late 1980s.) It makes sense for Disney+ UK to want to start there with the series.

The series is also getting an assist from casting. The leading men who will be, ahem, anchoring the bonkbuster are American favorites David Tennant (Good Omens, etc.) and Aidan Turner (Poldark). Despite the latter sporting a rather unfortunate set of period-appropriate mustaches, both are dressed to kill in that way that upper-class British dudes just are.