SOUTH AFRICA'S TV WEBSITE
SIGN IN SEARCH MENU
SOUTH AFRICA'S TV WEBSITE


Get your reviews and insights on everything to do with movies and TV, locally and internationally.

Review: Side Dish Episode 1

Written by tha - bang from the blog Movies and Things with Thabang on 20 Aug 2018
Favourite this post


Black Brain Pictures, the guys behind City Sesla, Lockdown and Abo Mzala are behind the latest 4-part series to hit SABC 1: Side Dish, which premiered on the channel on Sunday (19 August) at 20h00.

It delivers on debauchery, sexiness, some slick editing and our favourite subject of all time - girls behaving badly....lets dig in...



Written by Tshenolo Mabale (Who also wrote an episode 1 of Emoyeni) and Mandla M (one of Black Brain's head honchos), the first episode set up the not-so-fantastic married foursome of Sli (Jo-anne Reyneke channeling her best raunchiest self - the archetypal slay queen), Amanda (Refilwe Madumo, the faithful wife married to a douchebag - the diamond in the rough), Joyce (Matshepo Maleme - the happily married mother of three - the faithful friend) and Phiwe (Thuso Mbedu, the nerdy young one who's just gotten engaged - the goody two-shoes.)



The foursome's girl-weekend of booze and being naughty goes horribly wrong when the married queen B brings a stud that isn't her husband to the retreat.

Unfortunately the stud has a massive appetite and ends up sleeping with Sli and Amanda in one night.

As usual, instead of the girls ganging up on the guy for sleeping with both of them the same night, the girls get into a catfight which ends with the young man ending up dead. This is where things get interesting. 

Mandla and Tshenolo have to be commended because the body count keeps going up and the plot moves very quickly.



Mini-series work well when treated like a four-hour movie and Side Dish delivered on that. In one episode we got the character's arc set up and about three plot twists all under one hour, leaving us wishing it was next week Sunday already.

The actors are also Side Dish's greatest asset. Jo-anne Reyneke leads from the front with her Housewives of Joburg demenour and she sells it hard, whilst not over-shadowing her co-stars who do their best to bring the idiosyncratic characters to life.



If the characters were not flashy and entertaining enough, the series decided to have fun with montages, either to represent the boredom and mundanities of school life with ants marching in lines or to showcase sex by having animal planet montages of animals and insects doing the naughty, finished off with a champagne bottle popping... who said we can't do self reflixivity in SA?

Side Dish delivers and SABC 1 has really created competition for Mzansi and M-Net for the 8 pm slot.. can't wait to see what happens to the foursome once they are back from the retreat and having to live with killing not one but two men in one night. Yes, the episode was that hectic.

It felt like: Sex in the City meets the Real Housewives of Jozi with a tinge of Pretty Little Liars.

Review 
*****
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* rubbish ** ja nee *** ya zamanyana ****Almost Pefect ***** PVR the other show and watch this

Shows in this post: Side Dish

Channels in this post: SABC1



Comments


Only TVSA members can reply to this thread. Click here to login or register.






LATEST ARTICLES

Rugby player Ruan Smith up for grabs in Op My Eish! 4

Old and busted: actors and singers. New hottness: sportsmen. If you fancy some sporty spice, get in the casting que.


New on TV today: Wednesday 9 July 2025

Phones and cameras get you Caught! on ID, as Netflix begins Building the Band with the late Liam Payne.


New on TV today: Tuesday 8 July 2025

Mzansi Magic invites you to Lose It or Lose Me and Netflix documents The Real Project X.


On Carte Blanche: drug dealer doctors and pharmacists thrive in Benoni

D.I.S.G.U.S.T.I.N.G They're peddling high risk, addictive medication illegally and no-one's stopping them.


New! 016 FM Teasers - July 2025

DJ wars erupt and shady business lurks. Mpho Sebeng goes ON AIR in his final role.


New on TV today: Monday 7 July 2025

Drama series 016 FM begins on Mzansi Magic and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares returns to BBC Lifestyle.


New on TV today: Sunday 6 July 2025

Comedy-drama Is'thembu Sika Msongelwa begins a run on Wethu and reality low Icebo Labantu starts on SABC1.


New on TV today: Saturday 5 July 2025

Anime series The Summer Hikaru Died is available on Netflix and Jan Braai vir Erfenis returns to kykNET.


M-Net movies popcorn pack: July 2025

A guide to fliks on M-Net and the movie channels. Titles include Wicked, The Marksman and Chiwetel Ejiofor's Rob Peace.


New on TV today: Friday 4 July 2025

Anton & Giovanni's Adventures in Spain commence on BBC Earth and Blink Kant Bo returns to eExtra.

LATEST SITE ACTIVITY


More activity at TVSA Central



LATEST SOAPIE TEASERS



LATEST SOAPIE TEASERS




Thabang Phetla loves movies,
he loves TV...
he loves his writing...
if you love movies and tv
you will definitely love
his writing on movies and TV.
signed by Thabang's Mom
 
×
×

You browser doesn't have Flash, Silverlight, Gears, BrowserPlus or HTML5 support.