kykNET renews drama series Sara se Geheim for a 3rd season, comedy series Hotel for a 4th season.

kykNET (DStv 144) has renewed the Afrikaans drama series Sara se Geheim filmed in Cape Town for a third season, while the comedy series Hotel filmed in Centurion has been renewed for a fourth season.

The mockumentary Hotel, produced by Nouvanaand Films and following Ferdie Kruger (James Borthwick) and the hapless staffers at Die Fransen hotel, will be back for a 4th season that will start on kykNET in January 2020.

In the new season mayor Stephano Stutterheim plans to demolish the hotel to make way for the Mautrain, while Jony (Simoné Pretorius) falls in love with Gawie, played by Quentin Krog joining the cast that includes Schalk Bezuidenhout (Danny), Beer Adriaanse (Thomas), Martelize Kolver (Brenda), Mila Guy (Malanie) and De Klerk Oelofse (Jaap).

"The cast and crew are very excited about this season. Bennie Fourie, writer and producer of Hotel, makes sure that every season is even better than the last," says kykNET. 

Bennie Fourie says "The writing doesn’t get easier, but the fun multiplies. Viewers can look forward to more hilarious entertainment and pure comedy as well as silly shenanigans from the Fransenburgers. It’s still a privilege to film yet another season at the Fransen home, Kleinkaap Boutique Hotel in Centurion".

kykNET also renewed the drama series, Sara se Geheim (Sara's Secret) for a 3rd season that will also be broadcast in 2020.

Originally developed as a soap but turned into a drama series, the show is set in and around Athlone and Durbanville with filming on the third season that had started earlier this year already.

There are more secrets in the life of Sara Abrahams (June van Merch) as well as in the Cloete, Kiewiets and Vermeulen families.

The third season of Sara se Geheim will include more drama, intrigue, death and even a wedding.

After Kelvin's death, it forces Maggie to look at her own mistakes. His brother's death leaves Aiden with unresolved anger and aggression and he's desperate to find Maggie who's disappearance leads to chaos in her family.

Filming starts on new Afrikaans kykNET comedy, Mense, Mense, set for broadcast from April - but why add yet another lazy, reduplication show title?

Filming has started on a new Afrikaans comedy for kykNET (DStv 144), lazily-badly entitled Mense, Mense, and set for broadcast on M-Net's Afrikaans pay-TV channel from Monday 9 April at 20:30.

The comedy produced by Nouvanaand Films and set in Johannesburg, revolves around a group of friends who are sharing their professional and personal lives as they live, work and interact together within the same building.

The Mense, Mense "cast cast" includes the singer Bobby van Jaarsveld and actors Crystal-Donna Roberts, Solomon Cupido, as well as Sandra Prinsloo as the building's landlord; in addition to Lea Vivier as well as Reynardt Slabbert.

kykNET says "Mense, Mense exposes the see-saw journey of friendship, relationships and adulthood, but above all the unbreakable love between strangers who become family".

Pierre van Pletzen is the director.

With Mense, Mense it is interesting that kykNET continues not to appear willing to put in the work and time to develop apt, original Afrikaans show titles, and struggles to use the rich, existing Afrikaans lexicon to find words to not just properly define programmes, but to indicate to viewers what they are about.

The repetitive and generic Mense, Mense joins the kykNET schedule that already has, and suffers from, reduplication like Parlement, Parlement that doesn't tell viewers not familiar with shows what they are.

There's also a problematic and lazy "Op Die" ["On the"] title trend on kykNET with show titles called Oppi Kassie [On the Box] and Oppie Stoep [On the Stoep], and even Op Die Spel.

Ideally no TV channel should ever have, or allow, even two show titles that are remotely close to each other in name.

American TV channel executives told The Hollywood Reporter back in 2012 about the topic of picking and assigning TV show names, that "You've got to have something that makes people say, 'I want to check that out'. It has to be catchy, and it has to frame for the audience the context of the show".

An Australian showrunner in 2010 about the same subject, told The Sydney Morning Herald that "unless you're expressing yourself properly with the title, you're most unlikely to succeed".

If kykNET orders some Steri-Stumpies for whoever all are responsible, and make them brainstorm for half an hour, surely better titles idea can be dreamt up than Mense, Mense.