Here on Saturday morning, 8 June 2024, I feel like the nation is trapped in that space between the end of season 6 and the beginning of season 7 of our favourite TV series. Let’s call it The Real House Husbands and Wives of Parliament.
Like any good show, it has a cast of characters. Some are beautiful, some are vain, some are thin skinned, some are smart, and some are not.
It has all the best elements. It also has beady eyed producers (aka News24) ready to pounce on any piece of gossip to put on the show’s promo. Did you know that one of the characters is has been arrested? Gasp! Did you know some of the characters have racist pasts? Eish! Did you know that they all earn more than R100,000 a month. Gosh!
Liminal spaces are empty or abandoned places that appear eerie, forlorn, and often surreal. (From Wikipedia)
Of course, the last season ended with… A cliffhanger! This was quite a clever stunt. In a spectacular crossover, we now have that great innovation from South Africa’s Got Talent: The public vote.
After six relentless seasons, the people at home had, it turns out, got a little bored. Not many people voted. And when they did, they asked for a little more drama.
Like many great shows, the initial premise was great, and the cast was excellent. In the first season, the main character was in a marriage characterised by, what a famous reviewer called, “longings, obsessions and deceits.” They also cast his wife as someone who was, excuse the phrase, drop dead gorgeous. And an individual in her own right. But the last few seasons had got a little tedious. As often happens, the plot lines became increasingly unbelievable. For seasons four and five, in a classic replace-the-main-character-with-a-baddy-trope (this is a sing-along-link), they cast someone who had multiple wives, which confused viewers. One tried to murder the main character. There were some weird brothers from India. The main set, a huge grand opulent building in Cape Town, burnt down. Also, it was plagued by power cuts. So many odd plot lines. It was just too much.
The next reset was to bring in a set of supporting characters from season 1 and set them up as the main characters. But they were not so edgy anymore, and were no longer as young or hot as they could be. Some of the children of the original characters showed promise but were sadly written out. It all got quite tedious and the plot seemed to stall.
We digress.
What shall the next season entail? It starts very soon. How will this cliffhanger resolve?
My idea for the next season is to start with a new plot line. Rather than just a bunch of househusbands and housewives bickering about the quality of the sandwiches, the characters are now all part of running a company, Mzansi (Pty) Ltd.
Turns out this company was there all along. Actually, it was paying for the house, and well everything. Gosh. This is a twist.
The company is in trouble. Its revenues are down. Its expenses are too high. The shareholders are losing money. They are not happy.
In the opening scene of season 7, the shareholder representatives - let us be clear here, the shareholder representatives, not the shareholders - of Mzansi (Pty) Ltd are now in a huge boardroom. They can’t use the company’s actual board room in the family house (remember it burnt down somewhere in season 6), so they have to borrow one of the rooms in one of the houses of their rich cousins in a lovely seaside town.
They are thinking about even having the rich cousins on the executive committee. (This is a bitter pill to swallow, because it is not clear that the rich cousins became rich by being nice to other people).
It seems to everyone that maybe they should focus on getting the company finances back on track. I mean the dividends do kinda pay for everything.
First, the company needs to get its revenues up. It seems they have found common ground on seven of the Operation Vulindlela items: the unbundling of Eskom; the concessioning of ports; the establishment of a water regulator; the implementation of a skilled visa programme; title deed reform to expand land ownership; mineral rights reform; and the rapid expansion of spectrum availability.
(Curiously, both sides are not talking about improving cannabis regulation, which is no longer a priority. Legal cannabis use might help the negotiations, particularly with some of the other cousins.)
Two of the big areas of contention, BEE and NHI, well, perhaps, those are best left for a special few episodes with high ratings somewhere closer towards the end of the season when people start shouting nasty things to one another.
I mean, we need a cliffhanger for the end of Season 7, don’t we?
In the meantime, the viewers are anxious for the show to start up again. Most importantly, the shareholders of Mzansi (Pty) Ltd would like some dividends and the bondholders don’t want to put the company into liquidation.
En nou gaan julle almal huistoe. (and don’t forget to buy my book).