War

If Succession mated with Suits, their progeny may look something like moreish legal drama War. The new Sky Original series has all the slickness and snappy wit of the former, merged with the unabashed trashiness of the latter. The result is a knowingly silly, but highly addictive, addition to the lengthy legal drama canon.

In what’s dubbed “the biggest divorce trial in British legal history”, Hollywood actress Carla Duval (Sienna Miller) and tech billionaire Morgan Henderson (Dominic West) enlist the help of rival law firms – Taylor & Byrne and Cathcarts & Sons respectively – to advance proceedings. Carla cites Morgan’s habitual infidelity as grounds for divorce and seeks a significant chunk of the wealth he made after the pair signed a prenuptial agreement. Things get uglier and twistier by the end of each episode, with the trove of quotable lines ever expanding. “If they play dirty, we will be total and utter filth,” snarls Beatrice (Nina Sosanya), the queen of Cathcarts.

Miller and West remain stoic and dignified, exuding the kind of patrician Britishness clearly geared towards American audiences. Sosanya and Pip Torrens (playing the ridiculously monikered St John Smallwood) chew the scenery as Cathcarts’ ruthless litigators. Meanwhile, Archie Renaux captures the class anxiety and desperation of Johnny, a young lawyer eager for his first high-powered job while waiting tables to make ends meet.

It wears its cynicism on its sleeve, all too aware that the show’s pull lies in posh British actors doing posh British things. There’s an emphasis on window dressing via ornate settings and the immaculately, absurdly curated lives of its two divorcees. And it’s achingly exposition-heavy, with no room for nuance as characters practically spell out their backstories and motivations. Rather than delicately convey that Carla’s star is waning, reaching Woman of a Certain Age designation in Hollywood while Morgan is allowed to be the eternal playboy, the script spells it out regardless.

But, of course, War wasn’t made to be a treatise on what it means to be a mistreated woman deemed both professionally and personally disposable. It’s about cutting barbs, received pronunciation-infused profanities and greed, be it Carla’s quest for revenge, Morgan’s lust for power or Taylor & Byrne and Cathcarts’ pursuit of glory through a star-studded trial. War is impeccably glossy, tirelessly witty small-screen escapism.

Antonia Georgiou

War is released on Sky on 1^st October 2026.

Watch the trailer for War here: