The Hawks. South Africa's latest cop show

Monday saw the launch of a new TV drama — The Hawks. The latest offering in that uniquely South African genre, the crime-fighting soap opera. It will be taking the place of the ill-fated show The Scorpions — recently cancelled despite favourable reviews. The studio cited irreconcilable creative differences between the script-writers and studio bosses after the writers and certain members of the cast had wanted to turn the popular character, JZ, into their chief villain. The studio bosses felt this move overstepped the show’s original mandate. “These guys just didn’t think it through. This is mainstream entertainment. Plot twists like these don’t sit well with the audience,” said one irate studio exec.

Outside experts have said the real motivation is financial. “This kind of thing has a real knock affect. Think of the merchandise. All of those JZ T-shirts, mugs and posters. The capital loss on these alone would have left the show’s backers seriously out of pocket. There are also syndication issues. JZ is a very marketable commodity. The spin-off opportunities are enormous. We’re talking record deals, talk shows, celebrity appearances. Even new shows. Make an Arms Deal with JZ or Umshini Wami: The Musical. The potential is just massive.”

The good news for viewers is JZ will be playing a more prominent role in the new show. The creators see him as a sort of benevolent godfather figure like Don Corleone. “We really liked the way Marlon Brando’s character in The Godfather could be such a badass but still remain a likable guy.”

When asked about the show’s name, The Hawks, they said: “We toyed with a lot of ideas here. The Jackals. The Pofadders. The Crocodiles. But what we realised, like the scorpion, none of these animals can really be trained. Whereas hawks can. Not only do they have wings and really big claws, which is totally awesome, but they will always listen to the falconer. Chain of command. It is going to be one of the big themes in our show this season. You must never break it. That’s how you get busted back to uniform division.”

The show’s top cop will be Anwa Dramat. The creators have written him to be a bit of a dark horse. A sort of mystery man. The show’s new director, Nathi Mthethwa, expanded on the character. “This guy is old school. He’s worked in the shadows. He’s been undercover. Is he good police? Hell, yeah! Does he suffer from conflicted loyalties? Of course! It wouldn’t be good TV, if he didn’t. Will he protect his bosses or serve the people? You’ll have to watch to find out.”

But there is a chance this question may go unanswered. The show creators explained why: “We wanted to build on the failures of the Scorpions. So we workshopped this thing with some of the best storytellers out there. Guys who really understand fiction. Like Carl Niehaus. He has been fantastic. Really shown us how to hold a good story together. Our plan is to take it back to basics. The bad guys are going be more classic this time — your traditional arm robbers, rapists and murderers. We sense that the whole white collar, political intrigue thing has become so tired. The audience is not willing to sit through the complications of catching corporate and political hoodlums. They don’t want long-winded court dramas that carry on over an entire season. Look at the Schabir Shaik episode. We got some of our lowest ratings on that one. People are looking for simple story lines. Skop, skiet en donder. There’s a hijacker so shoot him! Die hard style. A cop kills a bag-snatcher in Hillbrow. Things look dicey. We work the excessive force angle. But then it turns out he is an illegal immigrant so everything is fine again. Simple clear-cut cases. One-hour long. Job done. Finish and klaar.”

The creators are confident that this new show will please most of South Africa’s viewers. But may not garner the critical acclaim they want. In answer to this, they have stated: “We’re doing this for the fans, not for the critics. If they’re so worried about the future of South African crime shows, they can always watch reruns of the TRC.”

Rumours that Zapiro will be appearing in a small cameo role as an assassin who kills people with his pen could not be confirmed. © News as entertainment 2009