Season 4
Interrogation Room is a South African television drama series produced by Fremantle Media for SABC1 which explores the emotional impact that crime has on its victims and on the police themselves. Most of the drama unfolds indoors, in the tense, claustrophobic, environment of the police station.
The series premiered on SABC1 on Thursday 11 November 2004, at 21h00. See "Seasons" below for seasonal broadcast dates and times.
Season 4 premiered on SABC1 on Thursday 14 August 2008, at 20h30. There are 13 hour-long episodes in the fourth season.
Repeats
Tuesdays: 22h00
Season 4 Synopsis
A major change was made to the show for the fourth season: for the first time the series features an ongoing story arc, which takes up roughly 25% of each episode. Previous seasons were all procedural, i.e. each episode was a self-contained story.
The Ongoing Story
Hlomla was demoted a few years ago for his bad attitude and relentlessness after an investigation during with which his partner at the time ‘committed suicide’.
Hlomla eventually let the incident go, but during the current season the incident is brought to the foreground again.
Bhelu, seeing herself as the ultimate sleuth, gets involved in an innocuous burglary investigation, but inadvertently starts delving into very dark and dangerous stuff.
Her and Hlomla are involved again in the old case with threats being leveled at them from individuals secretly attached to the National Intelligence Agency.
Warning after warning and departmental threats of suspension can't stop the two of them and finally they learn that the late partner was in fact murdered as part of an effort to snuff out a highly militant right wing organisation who had designs on assassinating Mandela and throwing the country into anarchy.
Season 4 Casting
Odidi Mfenyana - who played Detective Ntando Mqombote in the third season - is the only major cast member not to return for Season 4.
He was replaced by new cast member Pakamisa Zwedala in the role of Detective-Sergeant Makhaya Ndlamini.
Each episode is populated with new cameos, however, in each episodic investigation and as witnesses, suspects and the like.
Season 4 Episodes
Episode 1
Our four interrogators are all involved in investigating an assassination attempt on a prominent business man with a dubious background.
The investigation leads them from his disgruntled ex-wife, who owns the weapon, to a jewellery consultant he claims is his mistress, and finally to his arch-rival, Jacky Adams.
Whilst all have valid motives, there is intriguing forensics evidence which leads Hlomla to the surprising truth.
Episode 2
An incarcerated serial killer mysteriously strikes again from behind bars. How is this possible? Unlikely suspects are grilled until our cops reach a surprising conclusion.
Episode 3
Mac and Ayanda happen upon a carjacking outside an exclusive school, where a trigger-happy security guard guns down the carjacker, who not only happens to be his wife, but is also the driver’s domestic servant.
Meanwhile Bhelu gets her teeth into a robbery reported by none other than Hlomla’s late partner’s wife.
Episode 4
The son of a high society couple is found dead in an alley from what appears to be an overdose of heroin. But when the autopsy report indicates that all is not what it seems, the director of an exclusive drug rehabilitation centre finds herself as supect number 1.
Episode 5
When a sex video clip of a learner at an elite private school is MMS’d around the school, Lesley and Ayanda must investigate a case of statutory rape.
Episode 6
A woman is murdered during a paintball game and a tale of jealousy, corruption and vengeance unfolds.
Episode 7
When a man is found dead in the lounge of his own home, his firearm just inches from his hand, suicide is initially suspected. But forensics rules out both suicide and accidental death, leaving Hlomla convinced that the wife killed her husband, even though she has an airtight alibi.
Episode 8
When a military general is found beaten to death in his office, a tale, starting out as possible international terrorism, leads us to professional incompetence and finally corruption and vengeance.
Episode 9
When a minister is found poisoned in a church community hall, Ayanda and Mac must determine if he was a specific target or merely a random victim of a product tampering extortionist.
Episode 10
When a teenage girl goes missing a tale of cyber love and a bad-influence boyfriend lead us to a mystery never to be resolved.
Episode 11
When an old lady is beaten to death, our cops chase wild geese from strange love affairs to petty criminals to a parrot getting its beak into the guilty party.
Episode 12
When an voluptuous young mistress is shot dead in her married beau’s bed, the tale revealed tells of violent burglaries, male impotence, jealous wives and inrequited love.
Episode 13
When Lukas Blom is found murdered, the chase for The Shadow is on.
The IR Universe
The Open Plan Office
Cops at their desks. Working the phones. Arguing the case. Getting the answers. On the Internet, searching databases, tracking information.
Detective Sami Ntshona knows computers even better than he knows the city. He'll bend the law, even break it, to see that justice is done.
Sami's heart rules his head - he has a vicious temper. He hates criminals, but he'll fall in love with Thandiswa.
Staff Room & Locker Rooms
Cops at rest. Cops at play. Heading home, starting work, eating lunch. Talking, fighting, helping, flirting.
The station's Commanding Officer, Martin Mseleku, likes to hang around joking and laughing with the other cops. Not exactly a workaholic, he relies on his number two, Thandiswa - she's the best cop he's got.
But Thandiswa's honesty will one day clash with Martin's corruption.
Public Reception Area
Victims pour in, desperate for help. Criminals are dragged in from the streets. Cops like Detective Frederick Erasmus must face the public every day as they battle to keep the city's crime wave under control.
Frederick feels a heavy burden of guilt for the racist beliefs that many of his friends and family still hold. None of them approve of his burgeoning relationship with a married black woman - Thandiswa.
The Cells
Suspects behind bars. Waiting to be interrogated, hoping to be released. Drunks recovering, cops ignoring all the anger and abuse. Lawyers like Nena Pillay fighting for justice. Guilty or innocent, her clients almost always walk free.
Nena knows the law and how to work the system. It's not about the truth, it's about winning. Thandiswa can't stand her - and the feeling is mutual.
Seasons
[All seasons consist of 13 episodes]
Season 1
Premiere: 11 November 2004 | Finale: 3 February 2005 | On: Thursdays, 21h00
Season 2
Premiere: 13 October 2005 | Finale: 5 January 2006 | On: Thursdays, 21h00
Season 3
Premiere: 11 October 2007 | Finale: 3 January 2008 | On: Thursdays, 21h00
Season 4
Premiere: 14 August 2008 | Finale: 6 November 2008 | On: Thursdays, 20h30