Rules of the Game: What the Must Watch reviewers think
Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.
This week Scott Bryan and Hayley Campbell review Rules of the Game on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Maxine Peake stars as a manager at a family-run business with a toxic workplace culture.
BBC/The Forge/Brian Sweeney
Scott says: "A missed opportunity"
"Before I review 'Rules of the Game,' I have to recommend watching Maxine Peake in 'Anne' if you haven't already. Her depiction of Anne Williams is a Must Watch. That heartfelt, necessary drama deserves all the praise it can get.
"In Rules of the Game, despite the topic of toxic workplace culture being an important topic to explore in a television drama and Maxine Peake being the best thing in it, this does feel like a missed opportunity.
"This drama does this thing that I hate, where it uses too many timelines, which it flicks between all the time. There’re three timelines! It starts off on the day of the incident explored at the start of the first episode, then it fast-forwards to the investigation, then it goes back in time to when the HR officer started with Maxine. Then it flicks between them all while constantly withholding information from the viewer.
"I find that very irritating – I think there’s only been one show over the last two years where I’ve actually enjoyed this type of thing."
BBC/The Forge/Brian Sweeney
Hayley says: "Cliched and predictable"
"I was disappointed in this. You’ve got Maxine Peake who is brilliant, and you’ve got a story about a death in the office in the face of #MeToo allegations: there’s so much to play with here but I found the writing to be cliched and predictable every step of the way. I did not expect that when I started watching; I thought it was going to be brilliant."
BBC/The Forge/Matt Squire
Rules of the Game is available now on BBC iPlayer.
Must Watch is released as a podcast every Monday evening from BBC Sounds and all other good podcast providers.
This week, the team speak to Dan Ryan about series 3 of The Bay on ITV and M. Night Shyamalan about Servant season 3 on Apple TV. Plus, reviews of Hidden Assets on BBC Four and Ant and Dec’s Limitless Win on ITV.
