Breathtaking vistas? Wild animals? Vibrant culture? Life Is Wild, the new fish-out-of-water drama on the CW promises all these things, and yet, doesn't quite deliver. It's more of a "Life Is Mild" -- a generic family drama set in a lush South African locale -- that strips all the color out of the scenery by weighing down its story with bland characters played by nondescript actors stuck in unoriginal situations. For real excitement and back-stabbing familial drama in the South African wild, check out the spectacular Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet. My family may be late to the game (Meerkat Manor is now in its third season), but those meerkats have us absolutely riveted. And maybe that's why I had a hard time getting excited by Life Is Wild. There's no real sense of danger. Unfortunately, this fictionalized African drama just can't compete with the real life-and-death struggles of those photogenic meerkats.
ABC and Oprah's production company, Harpo Productions, will team up for a special about how Oprah built a school in South Africa for disadvantaged girls. The special will chronicle Oprah's five-year effort to get the school built. The school is called The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy (did she really have to name it after herself?). It's pretty sweet- with computer and science labs, a library, theater and "wellness center". It opened up in January after Oprah personally selected the 152 students who would be lucky enough to attend.
Every time Oprah does something that infuriates you and makes you think she's grandstanding, she turns around and does something that shows how generous and caring she can be. Case in point: Earlier today, 
The PBS series Independent Lens kicks off its fifth season on October 24 at 9 p.m. with The World According to Sesame Street, an in-depth look at how productions of the long-running children's series are created in other parts of the world. The special looks specifically at productions in Bangladesh, Kosovo and South Africa where the simple moral lessons of Sesame Street must somehow permeate cultures rife with political conflict, genocide, disease and starvation. This seems like a wild leap from the American version, and it is, but it's also worth pointing out that the original Sesame Street was subtly geared towards the poor and disenfranchised, taking place on an actual urban inner city street rather than some mystical far away land. The guiding ethos of Sesame Street has never been complete escapism, but rather making children better understand the world around them, and changing the scope of the series as time goes on in order to remain relevant. When the South African version of Sesame Street introduced a character with AIDS, some groups found it distasteful, but in a country where the number of people with HIV and AIDS has reached epidemic levels, it would make less sense not to bring in such a character.
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