African Skies

Cool half hour family show with some Imaginative storytelling

I saw it on cable with the title Okavango, which is that of the large inland delta of a river of that name in southern Africa. Mitchum played the Canadian absentee landowner. I never saw scenes with him on location, only contacting the mother via telephone.

Overall I enjoyed the show a lot and seeing Mitchum show up, even if only by phone, was a pleasant surprise.

The whole series can be viewed at the AFRICAN SKIES channel on YouTube. Check it out! The locations and production is terrific and the cast buys in. Of course Phil and my scripts aren't half-bad. It was a side project we did while I was writing-producing Beverly Hills 90210. The So Where To episode was shot in Soweto which was a very dangerous place to be. The South African actors were wonderful and easy to work with. Directors of the series included Peter Rowe. Writers besides Savath and Mollin included Hart Hanson, the creator of the Bones TV series

It's great to see it all again. Thanks to whomever did this.

Larry Mollin writer-producer - co-creator.

Sadly this Canadian based series did not have a longer run. African Skies was a tale of post apartheid South Africa as seen through the eyes of two adolescents just about hitting puberty. Simon James and Rousnet Brown are the boys and they have some Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn like adventures that Mark Twain surely would have recognized.

James's mother is Catherine Bach who a decade earlier was Daisy Duke on the Dukes Of Hazzard. She's matured now and runs a ranch and tends to the wildlife much like Daktari did back in the 0s. Her father is Robert Mitchum.

Mitchum was a last minute replacement for Glenn Ford ho had heart and lung issues that forced his retirement. Ironically Mitchum's health was also declining and he died almost decade before Ford.

It was a nice series and sadly it only lasted 2 seasons. Probably the expense of shooting in South Africa and the boys growing up so that they would no longer be believable as modern day Tom and Hucks.

Wish a nostalgia channel would pick this up,