7de Laan is my guilty pleasure. It's basically Neighbours, but South African. Same looking sets, same plots, more or less identical characters. If it wasn't in Afrikaans, I might easily believe it is Neighbours. Dialogue often slips in and out of Afrikaans and into English or an African language, which can be very funny to hear.
Unfortunately, we in the UK can't watch it anymore since the South African channel stopped being available on Sky. But I enjoyed it thoroughly while it was on. It's light-hearted, harmless.... pure escapism.
I won't pretend it's groundbreaking television. I won't even pretend it's particularly good television. But it has what Neighbours has: the ability to focus on the happier things in life and not to get tied up in anguish and melodrama all the time. It's truly easy to watch, and it was my guilty pleasure.
