[1][2] At the time of its production, Rhodes was the most expensive project ever undertaken by a British television broadcaster, costing £10 million to make, and was seen as a huge gamble by the BBC.
[3] On 26 September 1996, a report by The Independent's Marianne MacDonald suggested one of the series' biggest issues was that it assumed its viewers would already have a prior knowledge of Cecil Rhodes' life and achievements, something which it turned out many of those watching it did not possess.
[3] Following the 2000 adaptation of Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake's series of fantasy novels, which also proved to be unsuccessful with viewers and critics, Rhodes was included in a list of notable British television flops compiled by The Guardian.
[5] Because of the dramatic slide in ratings, Rhodes was quickly deemed to have been a failure, prompting MacDonald to observe that the series was 'in danger of becoming a flop as colossal as its hero's exploits'.
A. Gill suggested it 'started with everything against it and then they made it all worse', while David Aaronovitch of The Independent on Sunday criticized the overuse of background music, observing 'the BBC's Rhodes is a man who cannot take a leak without the assistance of the Berlin Philharmonic'.