Having watched the first 4 episodes - basically the first whole week of M-Net's brand-new weekday soap The Wild starting on the pay broadcaster at 18:00 - the new soap is a South African TV safari that's well worth tuning into.
The Wild, set on a luxury fictitious game farm Dinaledi Lodge with at least 3 rival families, packs enough scenery (the nature and human wildlife kind) to make this a worthwhile TV game drive. The Wild's first four episodes froth with a nude socialite (the soap is family friendly don't fret) in a private pool seducing a hunky game ranger to plunge in with her, enigmatic poaching, a banquet where fists fly, the terrific TV return of soap star Connie Ferguson, sparring brothers, kitchen craziness, a grave secret, a girl who discovers an SMS from a stripper on her flash-jacket boyfriend's phone and a mystical marula tree. From the more sedately serene to the more salacious, The Wild incorporates an untamed range of characters.
Any soap needs The Big Five - setting, beautiful people, intriguing storylines, ongoing and slowly unfolding drama, and relatable characters. The Wild on M-Net already has the first four. Whether normal audiences will be able to relate to somewhat opague characters like game rangers and a black magazine editor dressed exactly like Meryl Streep in Out of Africa and who will most probably leave her career to settle on a game farm, remains to be seen. And there's almost too much constant smiling. But then The Wild boasts lots of natural light and sunshine - an enriching first for a South African soap.
''Dinaledi Lodge is rotten ...to the core,'' remarks James Alexander's character at the close of the first episode of this new soap directed by Alex Yazbek and created and executive produced by Bronwyn Berry. Anachronistically yet probably befitting a game farm The Wild seems very patriarcal to start with but it could hopefully change. The women are literally to be found making the beds while they gossip (''I'm not a gossip...''), in the kitchen, led to where they can find fruit, seen sowing, mixing the cocktails and being scared of snakes. It's the men who control the business interest (faithfully followed around by their women a step behind), who gets served cake, philander, get to fly in the helicopter and are the ones constantly seen arguing.
The Wild's soundtrack is novel and the most progressive of any South African soap to date. The multicultural and interlocking dynamic between the various families is not immediately transparent, and coupled with the numerous new characters might takes viewers some time to mentally get their heads around and get used to. There's enough humour (the first humorous situation comes 5 minutes into the first episode) and family squabbles (and the promise of a lot more) to make The Wild worth following.
