Riveting new SABC3 series, The Docket, from Clive Morris Productions, sees Hlubi Mboya lead the crime-busting Ravens.

Hlubi Mboya is bursting back on television tonight in the new local drama series, The Docket, on SABC3 at 21:30 in which the actress known for her iconic role as Nandipha in Isidingo, leads an elite, fictional crime-fighting unit called The Ravens as the only woman in a high-stakes, high-adrenalin team.

The 13-episode series from Clive Morris Productions, created by the veteran uber-producer Helen Smit, revolves around Colonel Ntsiki Motshe (Hlubi Mboya), leading a fictional South African high-profile crime fighting unit, trying to solve cases CSI-style that are loosely inspired by real-life, high-profile South African crime stories.

While the squad members have been chosen for their outstanding investigation skills, they’re also battling the glare of the media eye, with Motshe who has to try and deflect, answer and come up with quotes while everything happening behind-the-scenes is often very different from what is being presented to the media.

Tonight’s first episode is loosely inspired by the shock-hijacking and murder of the reggae star Lucky Dube in 2007 that made international headlines, with Sean Robert Daniels as head writer of the series. 

The series and first episode starts a year after the formation of The Ravens, and they’re investigating the case of famous musician Kgosi who is murdered.

Besides the stress of the work, the harrowing cases and crime-solving that veer into unexpected territory and resulting in unbelievable plot twists, gender dynamics also come to the front since Hlubi Mboya’s character is the only woman in a male-dominated team – where she is also the boss.

Part of the team are Colonel Marlon van Wyk (Duncan Johnson), Brigadier Funani Twala (Seputla Sebogodi), detective Terry Jahib (Ashish Gangapersad) and detective Neil Hall (Brendon Engelbrecht). 

Can The Ravens catch the perpetrators of crime without causing PR nightmares? Can South Africans from literally all walks of life, flung together under dangerous circumstances, work together to solve sensitive crime cases?

Cases in The Docket range from a farm attach to campus rape, a possible cannibal chef, a named business man run over in the street, an “alien abduction”, an old man abducted from a nursing home, fossil theft, a judge murdered in a hotel room and bank robberies.

Throughout the first season and beyond the case of the week, there is also an overall mystery The Ravens are trying to solve – the Endless: an enigmatic serial killer that even start to threaten the team members of The Ravens as they keep getting closer and closer to possibly unmasking and catching him.

Sean Robert Daniels becomes South Africa's first ever winner of a Nicholl Fellowship from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Well done and congratulations to Sean Robert Daniels of Laezonia, Gauteng who is a winner in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 2012 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. 

Th Academy tells me that it is the very first time ever that a South African winner gets this prize which is managed by the world's preeminent movie-related organisation which is also responsible for the Oscars.

Sean Robert Daniels' script, Killers, was one of five selected out of a massive 7 197 entries which the Academy received this year from around the world.

Sean Robert Daniels will participate in a week of industry events in Los Angeles hosted by the Academy and culminating in an awards ceremony in Beverly Hills on Thursday 8 November.

In Killers a hitwoman is called home by her mother who has a dying request ... one which the hitwoman cannot bring herself to honour.

Sean Robert Daniels is one of 5 writers who won, and each of them will receive $35 000.

Fellowships are awarded with the understanding that each of the 5 winners will complete a feature length screenplay during their fellowship year.