Rivals

In search of something new to watch on Disney+, I came across Rivals. I clicked on it because the name vaguely rang a bell, though I couldn't have told you what I'd heard about it, at what point or said by whom.

It's very well produced, with great acting and music, and I found it compelling almost instantly. I'm now caught up to the current season, for which Disney won't release more episodes until winter.

And yet... one of the most frequent comments I read about the show was that it was just jolly good fun to watch, and that hasn't really been true for me. I've been finding it compelling, yes, but in the same way a train wreck is compelling. Watching more episodes actually left me feeling actively bad sometimes, and even though I'm still not entirely sure why that is, I think the best explanation I have is that almost all the main cast members are so deeply flawed in ways that are just frustrating - either they keep making other people's lives miserable or their own, and always for really dumb reasons that just make you want to shake them and go "FFS, stop it". It's weird because I don't recall ever watching anything else that made me feel quite like this.