Blood & Water (Netflix South Africa) S01: D+

This is the first series from South Africa that I watch, but I understand is actually the second one. Earlier this year they released Queen Sono.

The drama and mystery that surrounds a group of teens from an elite high school in cape town catch my attention. I'm always in for a high school drama. Puleng (played by Ama Qamata) is a teenager that is growing tired that her parents never got over the fact that her sister was kidnapped at birth, but at the same time she's trying to solve the mystery herself and as in most teenage dramas, the girl's got some detective skills. She enrolls at one of the most prestigious high school in her city and of course as the new girl, and not so wealthy one, always causes some drama in this type of series. She befriends Fikile (played by Khosi Ngema) one of the top swimmers in the school and a very popular girl. Soon Puleng starts connecting dots and strongly believes that Fikile is actually her sister.

The story is pretty interesting, it has some really good twist and turns. But even though the season consist only of six episodes, it still feels very slow paced. It bored me on a couple of episodes. And with so few of them this is big trouble.

My main problem with Blood & Water is the feeling of a low production quality series. It looks more like a daytime soap opera. And that definitely takes out some points. Even though I already told you that the story is interesting, but the way they told it reminded me as well of a soap opera.

Now this might be a cultural thing, other series from Mexico, Colombia or even Spain have this soapy feeling. We might have to look at the main influences in the country on television.

Another issue for me was that some of the supporting cast members gave rather cold performances, again I don't know if this is lack of acting skills or a cultural thing. I found this cold performances also in some Asian and northern Europe series and movies

By the season finale they closed some important doors, but at the same time they opened a few more for a potential second season in a very organic way. Some times less experienced writers do this in a more forced way, they try and close some doors and bulldoze new ones that don't feel very natural in the story. But Blood & Water doesn't have that problem. And maybe for a second season they up their game.

I love this type of high school dramas to see how different cultures react to sex, alcohol, drugs and sexual preferences. Here we have a sexually fluid character and he is one of the popular guys in school and most people seem to know his sexual preferences and it doesn't bother them. As a gay man I like how is becoming more easy for younger generations and in more countries, than what it was just 10 years ago.

There are some similarities in the story with another series that was released a couple days later on Netflix, the Mexican drama Control Z, in both series videos shared anonymously on social media play an important part in the story. But I think is better managed on the Mexican drama than on Blood & Water. I won't go into more details of this to not spoil it for you. I'll give you my review on Control Z later this week.

If Netflix decides to renew this series I would give it another chance but is not really a good choice. Maybe if you have nothing else on your playlist.