While Netflix is busy falling over itself to seemingly green light nearly any potential new script that slides across its proverbial desk, our local streaming service Showmax has been very slowly building up its own exclusive catalogue of exclusive shows. There are some real gems on Showmax, my personal favourite being Tali’s Wedding Diary, and with the positive reception some its homegrown shows have been met with, Showmax isn’t slowing down. Instead, they’re speeding up things dramatically with the announcement of four new original series.
“We’ve deliberately ramped-up emphasis on local content,” says Candice Fangueiro, Showmax’s head of content. “If you look at something like the first view metric, which asks what’s the first show someone watches after signing up for Showmax under the assumption this is probably what convinced them to join, three out of the top five first view pieces of content are now local.“
So what are these new shows? Well, we’ve got a breakdown of what you can expect to hit Showmax in the near future. Look, we have no idea how good these shows are going to be but what’s nice to see is how wide the range of genres is. Variety is the spice of television as I’m sure someone out there says.
Life With Kelly Khumalo, launching 6 August 2020
It seems like an undeniable truth of the world that reality shows are just…growing. Which is weird, right? You’d think we as a society would have got sick of the format back in the early 2000s when they first peaked. Yet they continue on, unyielding in their pursuit of “real people” and telling “real stories”. Kelly Khumalo, acclaimed singer and controversial media personality. Life with Kelly Khumalo delves into the Khumalo’s life, looking at both her history as a performer, her showbiz career and even the conspiracy theories around the death of Bafana Bafana captain Senzo Meyiwa, with whom Khumalo had her first daughter.
Tali’s Baby Diary, launching 2021
The sequel to the highly successful (and genuinely hilarious) Tali’s Wedding Diary, this follow up sees Tali dealing with the stress of an unexpected pregnancy while continuing her attempts at becoming a top South African influencer. Still in the early stages of development, you can watch Tali announce the new show right here.
Now, the other two series are still pretty far away so we know less about them but we at least have some brief synopses, taken from a Showmax press release, of what viewers can expect.
Dam, launching 2021
“In Dam, a prodigal daughter returns home to the Eastern Cape to bury her father, only to be tormented by spirits in the house: but are they real or in her head?”
Skemerdans, launching 2021
“From Nagvlug Films (Rage) comes Skemerdans, a Cape Flats neo-noir set at The Oasis, a jazz club and after-dark entertainment venue that becomes the centre of a power struggle between two brothers, a scorned widow and an organised crime syndicate. As opposing forces fight to gain control of Glenn Fortune’s legacy, an ongoing murder investigation gets closer to the inconvenient truth…”
