Review of Wild at Heart: Series Two

Introduction

Danny and Sarah Trevanion (Stephen Tompkinson and Amanda Holden), her children Evan and Olivia (Luke Ward-Wilkinson and Rafaella Hutchinson) are a British family who co-own the `Leopard`s Den` game reserve with Anders Du Plessis (Deon Stewardson). Danny is a veterinarian who cares for sick and injured animals from around the region, as well as running the reserve on which they live with Du Plessis.

Series two of this popular ITV drama begins with Danny`s daughter Rosie (Lucy-Jo Hudson) arriving in South Africa, having dropped out of University and turning up drunk at the family home after having a few too many at the local bar, run by Max (Martinus Van Der Berg).

The Trevanions are in the middle of a cash-flow crisis which has led to a predator/prey imbalance in the reserve. The obvious answer would be to buy some animals from Tate (Gary Lawson), who owns the neighbouring reserve, but Danny won`t do business with him, because Tate allows hunting on his property. To compound their problems, Sarah has arranged for a couple to get married there and hungry lions aren`t on the guest list!

I only received the first disc of this three-disc set - the other two episodes on this disc involved a vulture called Victor and a surprise visitor for Du Plessis.

Video

Filmed on location at Glen Afric, South Africa and presented in the original broadcast ratio of 16:9, this looks excellent and has made the transition to DVD well.

Audio

The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo soundtrack is fine, but some dialogue is slightly indistinct and there are no subtitles on the DVD to help out - this seems rather strange and even cheap, as the show would have been subtitled on TV.

Features

The 46-minute `Behind the Scenes` featurette is an interesting watch, which filled me in on the background details to the Trevanions and showed me how the cast work with the animal wranglers when surrounded by some of the most dangerous wildlife in the world.

Short filmographies for Amanda Holden, Lucy-Jo Hudson, Hayley Mills and Stephen Tompkinson, with a selection of their work: the presence of Hayley Mills was slightly confusing as she didn`t feature in the three episodes I saw.

There are also six pages of production notes and a picture gallery, which has to be manually navigated and contains all of ten photos.

Conclusion

Since I was only provided with the first disc of this three-disc release, I can`t comment on the entire second series and, as I`d never heard of, let alone seen the show before, I wasn`t exactly familiar with the family dynamics and who everyone was.

The show is reasonably undemanding and formulaic: things start off badly, get worse, but ultimately resolve themselves by the end of the episode. Stephen Tompkinson and Amanda Holden are fairly seasoned actors and are well cast as the ambitious and good natured couple whose relationship is put under strain by the environment and their financial woes. Similarly well cast are Luke Ward-Wilkinson and Rafaella Hutchinson as the two young children, who are both playful and bored, depending on their mood and how much homework they have to do. Deon Stewardson`s grumpy Afrikaaner with a heart of gold is the most interesting character and Stewardson plays him well.

After watching three episodes I`m not about to rush out and buy the DVDs, nor tune in on TV, but if you like the series or unchallenging TV dramas, you could do worse. It`s quite enjoyable, harmless, heart-warming family entertainment, despite the 12 certificate.