It’s no wonder that the character Miems gets irate at the passers-through. And it takes just a small bound of the imagination to conjure an assortment of boffins, rogues and vagabonds that could drag adventure, opportunism and intrigue through the valley. In short, this is the ready-made location for a series of interwoven tales that thread through the heart of these spectacularly characterful farms, and are activated by the tensions across their common borders.

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Sketch Episodes:

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Episode Two deepens Detective Maake’s frustrations at the unhelpfulness of the locals, and Miems’ suspicions of this ‘fish out of water’. Meantime, a possible lifeline presents itself to the Wiltshires on the Nature Farm in the shape of an interested Scandinavian investor. Skye sees this simply as a ticket out of their predicament, but Miles’ idealism can’t quite cope with the excited developer’s ideas, such as a lucrative naturist (nudist) resort.

 

Episode Three – The annual wildflower spectacle has arrived in the valley along with eager nature-loving tourists, as well as a forbidding looking couple asking questions about the Xhosa-speaking detective. They convince the locals that Maake is a renegade policeman who runs an international poaching operation, and who is on the hunt to silence a fugitive informer.

 

The twist introduced in Ep3 does indeed appear true as Maake slips from the valley amidst a tribe of ‘vikings’ on their way through Bikers Heaven to the Afrikaburn festival on the Tankwa plains. The episode transforms into a psychedelic distortion of the classic Hitchcock manhunt.

The escalating tone of surrealism in this series is intended to shift the story from a tale of rural jealousies, to barely understood international intrigue and corruption, yet lensed through local folklore and belief.

 

Episode Five – Maake reaches Sutherland, and the police base from where he’d been dipatched to investigate the case of the body in the Cederberg. The Superintendent at the station is in fact a kingpin in the crime syndicate. A confrontation with Maake is interrupted by the arrival of the (now disheveled) hit-couple. It’s a redemption for Maake, but a ramping up of the dangers – to himself, and ultimately to the inhabitants of the distant valley. He escapes.

 

Episode Seven – Maake makes a secretive return to the valley via the alternate road. He has learnt to trust his hunches and to interpret his persistent dreams. He has also known all along that there’s a criminal connection between Miems’s brother and the world of astronomy (based at Sutherland) through a network of corrupted landowners and government officials.

 

Episode Eight – The true locals protect Maake, although they are still fearful of the manic creatures that traverse the valley at night (Mr Smith, whose reputation is now mythic-scale). That feral presence observes from afar as the driver of a shiny car, a new stranger, stops to unhitch the gate and checks for cellphone signal. (A series-ending denouement is yet to be devised).