Due to the filth I wrote about sexy shows on the telly in last week’s column, the governors of the trust that oversees The Irish Times held a special meeting. They decided I was being far too sexy. They are now permitting me to write about the excellent Jilly Cooper adaptation Rivals (Disney+) only if I focus on the intricacies of local-television franchising in the 1980s and not “shenanigans”*, “tomfoolery”* or “high jinks”* (*riding, *riding and more *riding).With this in mind they have suggested that I dispense with the “intimate” parts of Rivals in the first few paragraphs, just to get them out of the way. So here goes.When a mummy, a daddy, a daddy’s business partner, a cigar-chomping business aristocrat, a morning-show presenter, a priapic MP, a sexy American ladyboss, a romance novelist, a simple young ingenue (much like myself) who is vulnerable to seduction (guilty as charged!), a polo team, several topless farmers and the actor Danny Dyer all love each other very much, they make luuurve.And that’s the last we’ll be saying about that sort of thing* (*rumpy-pumpy, nude horseplay, hotchamatchotcha, the footman’s strange pastime, jiggery-pokery). Of course, some of you subscribe to our more risqué small-hours edition, Irish Times Nites (aka Irish Times After Dark, aka Irish Times: Gentleman’s Pleasure), and those of you from that sector of our readership will still be getting the dirty bits in parentheses at the end of the relevant lines. (In this news organisation we really like to service all of our readers, if you know what I mean.)But for the rest of you it’s going to be straight-up business chat. The Irish Times Trust wishes me to consider how Lord Baddingham (David Tennant) has structured his company (The Irish Times has solid shopkeeper roots, after all), the realities of international electronics tariffs in the 1980s (the trust believes computerisation is a fad; that’s why we got rid of online comments) and the foibles of the British Tory party in the waning days of Margaret Thatcher’s government, particularly the branch represented by Alex Hassell’s philandering aristocrat Rupert Campbell-Black. (We do see a lot of Rupert Campbell-Black’s impressive branch.) When we left them at the end of the first series, Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams), the go-getting American executive, was belting Lord Baddingham across the head with a trophy and leaving him for dead in his office. Meanwhile, Rupert Campbell-Black was off seducing the seduction-prone ingenue, who is getting more naive and wide-eyed with each passing week. (The same is happening to me.)Spoiler alert: Lord Baddingham is fine. He has a bandage now. Meanwhile, Cameron and Rupert are in hiding, fearful that Cameron will be arrested for lord-bashing. They have many special business meetings while on the lam and across the first few episodes. Sometimes Cameron takes the lead in the businessing. And sometimes Rupert does. Sometimes they have business meetings in a stable while clutching a riding crop. Sometimes they even have business meetings standing up at a mirror (which hurts my back just thinking about it).All the other characters are at a big pool party. We’re introduced to two new ones, hunky polo-playing twins. They are naked, presumably because England is very warm. When they jump in a pool we get a sort of visual stereo effect that many of you will think of often in your later years but about which I cannot go into detail because of the interference of the trust. Let me just say the words “mirrored meat propellers”.Big issues: Victoria Smurfit as Maud O'Hara and Aidan Turner as Declan O'Hara in Rivals. Photograph: Robert Viglasky/Disney Later, top TV presenter Declan O’Hara (Irish double agent Aidan Turner) is trying to work on his marital issues with his actor wife, Maud (fellow Celtic provocateur Victoria Smurfit). He works on them real good. They start working on their issues in the shower (presumably to save water – it’s the 1980s), but soon they end up by the fire. At one point Maud puts her finger on a particular issue and Declan makes a surprised face that says, “Oh, you’ve really given me something to think about!” But we can’t really hear him over the thrusting saxophone. Is Rivals eligible for the Golden Globes? If so, Turner should get two, gaffer-taped together. It’s a really probing scene. In many ways it’s quite refreshing to see a man having his “issues” worked on in such a fashion. I suspect, indeed, many people watching at home are inspired to work on their own issues while watching. Not me. I’m in an open-plan office.Anyway, O’Hara ends up standing nudely in a corridor with a packet of Crunchy Nut cornflakes covering his “area”. Will this encourage an increase in sales for this tasty breakfast cereal? Possibly for the readers of Irish Times Nites, the filthmongers. You know what they’re like.[ Aidan Turner: ‘I’d be sitting in the trailer going, ‘God Almighty. Can you just give me a cop drama?’’Opens in new window ]Rivals continues in this fashion. Lord Baddingham tricks Cameron into coming back to work for him at his TV company, Corinium. Cameron tricks Lord Baddingham in turn. We see the bucolic countryside. Look at the rolling hills, the clefts, the stately pines standing tall and firm. We see hunks of different sorts having a game of polo, a fascinating game in which the aristocracy trick a horse into playing hockey. Rupert’s wife, played by Hayley Atwell, turns up, accompanied by their terrible children. Rupert is torn between two-to-three-possibly-four lovers, feeling like a fool. The terrible children do not approve of his business meetings with Cameron.Lord Baddingham vows to destroy Rupert and eventually produces an exposé of him on his television channel. It reveals his propensity to have business meetings with all sorts of women, sometimes several at a time, with PowerPoint and everything. There is a shot of the back of Margaret Thatcher’s head. (I know for many readers of Irish Times Nites this is the most erotic shot of all.) We can tell she’s disappointed.Danny Dyer explores his Pinterian roots as Freddie Jones, an upwardly mobile entrepreneur with a heart (as opposed to globes) of gold. Lord Baddingham hires O’Hara’s wife for one of his projects in an attempt to anger O’Hara. O’Hara’s moustache twitches, approaching sentience. More issues are worked on, vigorously, energetically, acrobatically.More business meetings occur in which people take all sorts of positions, each more surprising and athletic than the last. There are more sad eyes from the ingenue. (As an ingenue myself I know her simple-hearted pain.) There’s a whole set-piece in which people are hiding in cupboards like sitcom characters. There are lots of Golden Globes. It’s a goddamned planetarium of globes, to be honest with you. (By globes I mean, of course, arses.)There is lots of classic 1980s music on the soundtrack, which means we get the first Joy Division–Jilly Cooper collaboration that I’m aware of. (The world is, in many ways, a Joy Division–Jilly Cooper mash-up.) Whenever Lord Baddingham is on screen, on the other hand, scary opera music plays. Something similar happens when my editor heaves into view. You know, sometimes I think Lord Baddingham isn’t a good person. He’s probably not someone to be emulated when I acquire a sexy television franchise in 1980s Great Britain. And, please God, someday I will.