DVD Review – Playing For Keeps: Season 1

Synopsis:

Playing for Keeps is a fresh, contemporary, and glamorous murder mystery set on the side lines of football, told from the unique perspective of the real power players: the women. The wives and girlfriends of professional athletes have their own games to play. Away from the grandstands and the locker rooms the real action is on the red carpets, in the beauty salons, and in designer bedrooms. It’s love, power, and status all the way— until the death of a team member adds investigation into the mix. This bold and brassy Australian series depicts the lives of the rich and famous, in a world full of lies, scandals, and possibly even murder…

What We Thought:

Playing For Keeps: Season 1 is an 8 episode Australian series showing the lives of the women involved with the men of Australian Rules Football. It’s Desperate Housewives meets a scripted version of Basketball Wives.

The first episode introduces a new member of the team and his girlfriend. She’s immediately out of place with the glitz and glamour. Then there’s an accident at a team practice and a player dies. The following episodes show all the sex and deception involved behind the scenes. The coach and his wife have an open marriage. The woman involved with the dead player is pregnant. The news is all over it.

The new player gets fully wrapped up into the team while the girlfriend has a hard time fitting in. She wants to be a teacher and gets a part time job teaching. She’s not as good looking or fabulous as the other women who do try to take her under their wing at first. She’s her own worst enemy at times and they think she ratted to the media. The game/team activities is pretty much irrelevant and you get very little game action.

If you grew up on the 80s prime time American soap operas or shows like Melrose Place or Desperate Housewives, you’ll probably enjoy Playing For Keeps Season 1. By the end it explains the truth behind the death, all the up and downs and leaves the door open for plenty of drama for season 2 which aired in 2019 on Australian TV. The women are beautiful. The men are athletes. There’s sex and lies. It’s not my usual cup of tea but I did watch it pretty quickly over a day and a half.