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Can reality TV be done without scripted drama? After watching some of the fifth season of Please Step In, Phumlani S Langa wishes they’d written in more action.
Please Step In
Mzansi Magic (DStv channel 161)
Tuesday, 8pm
2 stars
Black people love watching dysfunctional black people on TV. I would know as I have been black for quite some time now. The whole thing makes us feel a little bit better about our own circumstances – escapism of a sort.
Mzansi Magic’s Please Step In, now in its fifth seeason, serves up dysfunction by the bucket-load. Mam Angie Diale as the inviting confidante, and the producers have laid on the drama with the tinkling of piano keys in each scene to give the package that Khumbul’ekhaya feel.
Unlike SABC1’s pioneering offering of trouble-stricken real families this show is mad boring. The bulk of it takes place in a room where all the concerned parties are gathered to hash out the issue.
In one episode, a mother comes to the show for help because her now deceased husband had forced her to turn her back on her children from a previous relationship. She did, which left her kids feeling resentful. When she tried to explain herself to them as they got older, things turned physical at times.
We don’t get to see this as the show does not make use of any emotionally charged confrontation – just the sofa and some tissues.
It was painfully tedious to watch this unfold. The producers didn’t even have to search for her sons – they just rocked up at the studio. If they had included the part where they were tracked down and maybe just rolled up on them randomly, there would have been some shock value.
I also can’t help but wonder what Mam Angie’s qualifications are. She is out there dishing out advice and, yes, her wisdom is usually right, but who is she to be doing this – a life coach or a therapist? Some clarity would be nice.
It seems as though some of the people on this show would rather not be there, and I don’t blame them.
I feel that the script is not solid enough. I get that perhaps they’re trying to do sincere reality TV, but we have grown accustomed to the scripted drama. We need that on this show. Please lie to me, because this just doesn’t cut it.
