The original post: /r/television by /u/Hot_Fix_1858 on 2026-02-17 22:53:44+00:00.

I’m probably late to the party, but none of my friends have watched this show, so I thought I’d post here 😭

Because Heated Rivalry has been receiving so much praise online since its release, I decided to try watching it, and finished it a couple of days ago.

When I got through episodes 1 and 2, I did not get the hype at first AT ALL because there was a lot of sex and not much romance. Personally, I am not a fan of very sexual shows (irrespective of straight, gay, lesbian, etc.), so my opinion wasn’t that great. Episodes 3 and 4 were fine, but I think episodes 5 and 6 were the best. The show has some depth in certain aspects, like showing the struggles of hiding sexuality in the athlete world. Also, the production was great considering the budget of the show. I loved the cinematography!

However, I don’t understand how the show is doing as well as it is in terms of its writing, specifically, and this is most likely an unpopular opinion:

  • There were just so many timeskips over the decade Shane and Ilya were meeting up, and we mainly saw them meeting up to fuck. I don’t understand how they developed feelings of love for each other by having sex every few months for a decade. I get that this is a slow-burn in the sense that it took them a decade to start a proper relationship, but the timeskipping defeated the “slowburn” part for me. We didn’t see them learning anything about each other or bonding over that decade emotionally/mentally, until Ilya’s monologue to Shane in Episode 5.

  • Where’s the “rivalry”?? Other than Shane or some character stating that Shane hates Ilya, we don’t sense any tension or rivalry between them. My biggest criticism is that the show has a lot of “telling” and not a lot of “showing”. There’s not much romance, nor development with characters or relationships going on. Shane, in particular, seems underdeveloped as a character, especially outside of his relationship with Ilya. I don’t know if that will change later

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the purpose of the show/book; if this is a show that is mainly meant to be steamy, then I guess it fulfilled that. I have been enjoying the actors’ interviews and appearances together. I think that’s helping the show a lot

I’m not trying to offend anyone; this is just how I interpret the show. I think it’s also important for me to mention that I have not read the book, so I don’t know if the show justifies the book. Please feel free to share your thoughts!

TL;DR: I watched Heated Rivalry because of the hype, but I don’t fully understand it. The early episodes felt overly sex-focused, and even though later episodes (especially 5–6) had more depth, the heavy time-skips killed the “slow burn” for me. We mostly see Shane and Ilya hooking up for over a decade, not much emotional bonding outside of that, so their love feels underdeveloped. The rivalry is told rather than shown, and Shane especially feels flat outside the relationship. I’m not sure if I’ve understood the intention/genre of the show accurately