Life is Wild and Moonlight

What happens when you transport an American family to a strange land at the farthest reaches of the globe? (Well, to South Africa, but this is the CW.) In Life Is Wild, a recently remarried Manhattan veterinarian moves with his newly combined family to his former father-in-law’s game reserve in the South African bush. His daughter Katie narrates the family’s struggle to adjust to each other, culture shock, and the occasional face-to-face with local wildlife. Whether Life is Wild­, the American version of the British drama Wild at Heart, has enough fuel for more than a two-hour movie-of-the-week remains to be seen. And the dramatic fodder hinted at in the pilot—family tension, adolescent angst, relationship woes, etc.—bears close resemblance to just about every teen soap that has graced the CW lineup. But this light drama is filmed on-location, and the South African bush country provides a beautiful and refreshing change of pace if, say, you’re ready to run screaming from The Hills.
-Rachel Mosely

“So what’s it like, being a vampire?” This is the question posed in the first minute of CBS’s new show Moonlight, which spent the summer changing producers and being recast. Mick St. John (played by Australian Alex O’Loughlin) is Los Angeles’ own undead private investigator. He has a soft side for the mortal world, or specifically for one mortal—reporter Beth Turner (Sophia Myles), who helps him uncover a slew of vampire murders. With the demise of the WB’s Charmed and Angel, this new show (produced by Joel Silver of The Matrix trilogy and Chip Johannessen of CBS’s Dark Angel) has the potential to pick up viewers who are starving for the supernatural, though the premise is not the most original. The scenes move along in a slow, Sin City-like fashion, with one or two distracting camera angles, but really pick up once blood starts gushing. There is romance, suspense, action, and even a mystery-shrouded past. While the show tries to hook people with Mick’s personal narration, the final word on this show might as well be “predictability.”
- Shane Ferro