REVIEW. Room 9 on SABC1 is a drawn-out, bland, boring, been-there, tedious show with a hackneyed Harkness and smoke. A lot of smoke.

The dreadfully drawn-out, urban-awful science fiction sadness which is Room 9 on SABC1, is another good example of how simply bad most local South African television drama series are and how low-budget, embarrassing TV keeps getting made for the masses. Bad and sparse set? Dark and stormy night needed? Cue the smoke machine.

The only creativity in Room 9, written and directed by Darrell Roodt, is blatantly taking the name Captain Harkness from the BBC's Torchwood and copying it onto this embarrassing public television production. After the laughable opener episode maybe an upcoming episode deals with cloning.

By 21:10, 40 minutes into the first episode of this Home Pictures 1 Production and Dv8 Films with Urban Brew Studios, and with no screener beforehand to TV critics who had to watch the episode as it was actually broadcast on SABC1, I found myself yawning.

Lots of exposition, drawn-out scenes, little plot development, and that little person always accompanying Leon Schuster made me long for an episode of Khumbul'ekhaya. At least that has some drama.

Supposedly a science fictioney attempt, created by Darrell Roodt, Ivan Milborrow and Michael Swan and executive produced by David Dison and Sakkie Ferreira, a lesser-known police detective division investigates supernatural and paranormal creatures and phenomena in this "black South African Scully, tragic which man Torchwood impersonator" show.

A blind woman using a computer screen? Police sirens blaring when there's no emergency? And what's up with all the smoke machine use like a Michael Jackson Thriller video? No enough cardboard to build actual three dimensional sets?

Once again South African viewers have to suffer through not-very-nice television. One character starts off in the coma which Room 9 puts you in. Because there's seemingly not enough smoke, the characters also smoke on South African television. Because we always have to be 20 years behind the rest of the world when we make TV.

The futuro-fashion of Zethu Dlomo who plays Alice Kunene and which reminds of Michele Burger's wardrobe in the similarly toned Charlie Jade shows promise; as does the acting of Anthony Oseyemi as the Nigerian character Solomon Onyegu. Suave, well-dressed and well-spoken, perhaps this character should have been the lead? Hopefully there's more backstory to this character in future episodes.

The panderingly bad shots of David Butler as Gabriel Harkness circling so-called satanists as hooded figures and then lunging at them are so laughably bad that Room 9 comes across as an afternoon kids show where everything is so minimal, you won't be surprised to see a hand puppet pop up as a "real" character.

The mood music in Room 9's opening episode, especially at the beginning was good. (Unfortunately) it follows after the opening sequence of spooling celluloid which reminds of the Special Assignment original opening theme and look a few years ago.
I almost expected to see Max du Preez after that.

TACKLING THE TOKOLOSHE: Will Room 9, South Africa's new sci-fi paranormal drama series, be District 9 - or a laughable failure on SABC1?

This is going to be epic either way - epic awesome, or epic terribly terrible. Room 9 is either going to work like South Africa's sci-fi movie attempt District 9, or it will be an abysmal new television failure.

Room 9, by Dv8 Films and Urban Brew Studios is set to start on Thursday 8 November at 20:30 on SABC1 for a first season of 13 episodes and is billed by SABC1 as "the first of its kind for South African television".

Filled with many injokes from a reference to "Captain Harkness" to even a visual joke reminiscent of District 9, SABC1 proudly raises the bar and expectations super high by preselling Room 9 as "South Africa's answer to global television hits like The X-Files, Fringe, The Walking Dead and Lost".

Whether this will indeed be the case, remains to be seen. Neither SABC1 nor the production company has sent any advance screener episodes to South African TV critics for possible review for the show which will have, as SABC1 calls it, its "world premier" on 8 November. Tokoloshes everywhere will be watching.

Room 9, with Darrell Roodt as a writer and director (and whose movies include Number 10 and Dracula 3000) is set in the post-apocalyptic, futuristic New Azania (an alternative version of South Africa). It centres around an elite special team at the New Azanian Police Department who deals with the paranormal, the supernatural, the sacrilegious, the twisted and the unexplainable.

Detective Alice Kunene (played by Zethu Dlomo) is transferred to the division but has no idea what awaits (neither has TV critics). She is thrown into the deep-end in the first episode with her first case when a domestic worker is found savaged to death, thought to be the work of the Tokoloshe.

She meets detective "Darkness" Harkness (no, not Captain Harkness of the British sci-fi series Torchwood), played by David Butler. Hopefully "Darkness" Harkness, whose first name is Gabrielle, won't turn out to be omnisexual as well. Then it would be a rip-off.

Ruby Prins (played by Angela Ludek) is blind like Geordi on Star Trek: The Next Generation but has powers of prenatural foresight, and can probably already tell whether Room 9 will live up to South African viewers' expectations. The Nigerian expert on all things paranormal is the voodoo man Solomon Onyegu (played by Anthony Oseyemi).

Besides tackling the tokoloshe, Room 9 cases will involve the devil, Satanic cults, muti murders, demons, poltergeists, zombies, werewolves, aliens, vampires and even a mermaid.

"We have not seen this genre of television drama produced by South Africans before," says Room 9 producer Danie Ferreira, hoping that Room 9 will satisfy an appetite that South African audiences have built up for genre based television. "We see it in American programmes, but in Africa we have a limitless source of fabulous paranormal stories. Room 9 weaves these stories into compelling television."

Producer Jeremy Nathan is excited at the prospect of trying to create an iconic television series that South Africans can be proud of.

"Room 9 represents a different type of cutting-edge storytelling on local television," says Vukile Madlana, SABC1's publicity manager. "This type of programming has never been done before in South Africa and we are confident the series will keep our youthful audience captivated for its entire 13-weeks duration on SABC1."


[Editor: Set in a post-apocalyptic, futuristic, alternative version of South Africa, Charlie Jade touching on similar themes with a detective investigating paranormal events, was produced and shown in South Africa in 2005.]