David Tennant Drives Rivals Season Two’s Central South West Fight
David Tennant returns as Tony Baddingham in season two of Rivals, and the review says the Corinium TV boss is still at the center of the fight over the Central South West television franchise. The new season also pushes the story toward the 1987 general election, keeping the franchise battle and the political backdrop tied together rather than treating them as separate plots.
The review calls the second season tremendous and describes Tony as dastardly, which fits the way the show keeps him in motion after the last round of violence. Before this season, Cameron Cook had thwacked him over the noggin with a trophy or other object after Tony slapped her, and that sequence still hangs over the new episodes.
Rivals and Tony Baddingham
David Tennant plays Corinium TV boss Tony Baddingham, one of the names the review places inside the season’s main conflict. Rupert Campbell-Black, Cameron Cook, Beattie, Declan O'Hara and Maud O'Hara all remain in the mix, but Tony’s position in the television-franchise struggle keeps him functioning as the season’s pressure point.
The review says Tony had found out about Cameron’s involvement with rival consortium Venturer and arch-enemy Rupert, which turns the personal fallout into a business fight over control. Rupert later hides Cameron from Tony in his love-cottage in Devon, and that sheltering keeps the feud active rather than resolving it.
1987 election pressure
The story follows the characters as they prepare for the 1987 general election, so the franchise contest runs beside the campaign rather than after it. That setup gives the season a harder edge than a simple period romp: the television deal and the election both move at the same time, and Tony sits where those forces collide.
Rupert Everett’s Malise Gordon sums up the chaos with the line, “The man is a loose cannon,” while Cameron’s “Thank you,” after one of the debriefings in Devon lands like a warning shot rather than gratitude. The review’s final beat is Rupert’s “Plenty more where that came from,” after sex with Cameron Cook, which shows the series still using scandal as part of its machinery, not decoration.
Devon, Cameron, and the fallout
Rivals season two keeps returning to the consequences of that earlier blow-up between Tony and Cameron, and that is the useful reading for anyone following the show as a TV business story rather than a costume drama. The continuing struggle for the Central South West television franchise gives the season its stake, while the Devon hiding place keeps the personal and professional wars on the same track.
For viewers, the practical takeaway is simple: this second season is not resetting the board. It is extending the same contest over power, loyalty and broadcasting control, with David Tennant’s Tony still positioned as the figure most likely to provoke the next break in the peace.
