Skeem Saam lovers... it's time to say goodbye to the past and hello to new horizons on Season 7.
The season premiered on Monday (9 July) and brings some dramatic life changes for our long-time, fave characters.
TVSA caught up with the show's Script Editor Lunga Radebe who gave us the inside scoop on what we can expect from the future.
Lunga, who played Warden Molele on the show, has been on the writing team for two years and oversees the script writing process. He's also one of the scriptwriters.
Scooch in close and see what he has to say...
TVSA: Congrats on reaching the new season with over 8-million viewers - that's amazing. What are the writing team's goals for the new season? What were you thinking as you approached it?
Lunga: It's a great question because in Season 7, some of the guys that started with the show, these young men, are now wrapping up university so they're going into the professional world and this is the heart of Season 7 essentially.
We went: "Wait a minute, these guys, they're fourth year and so forth, they're going into the real world to do their internships and all of that so, in essence, you'd expect some big turning events and twists with regard to that."
Firstly, they were in uniform, then university, and now they're going into the real world so that's the framework we're going with.
Us trying to answer big questions that young people are faced with, you know, after university, do you revert back home? Do you stay in Joburg? What do you do? That's the heart of Season 7.
TVSA: The show could follow them through their entire lives.
Lunga: Yes, yes, absolutely.
Skeem Saam has a writing team of approximately 10 people, consisting of scriptwriters, storyliners, structurers and Script Editor. The series creator Winnie Serite guides the team as the Head Writer.
TVSA: When we looked at the
July teasers we noticed that Kat (Patrick Seleka) wasn't mentioned and then we saw he's back in
August.
We were like: "Huh!? Is he out of the season?" but from what we can see, Kat, Tbose (Cornet Mamabolo) and Kwaito (Clement Maosa) will all be back for the new season?
Lunga: Absolutely - all of them are still there, the guys we started with and you know why, Skeem Saam prides itself with retaining the same group of lead actors for seven years. It's a special thing.
TVSA: So they're going off to work... does this mean the new season will see new sets and characters in their new environments?
Lunga: Absolutely, remember that the heart of Skeem Saam is young people, high school and so forth - that's the heart of the show, the fabric of the show so we'll see a young group of students coming up from high school.
There's a class of Grade 10s - because essentially we focused on Grade 12 - but you know, we've got young people that are coming up to preserve that legacy of high school and so forth.
So yes, we will be introducing new sets and characters for the young characters and the older guys will be dealing with adulting and all that stuff, black tax and things like that so it should be very interesting.
TVSA: Will one or more of them go into a job environment with new characters? Is that something we should expect?
Lunga: Not necessarily, basically we'll be focusing on their issues within the work environment but not necessarily focusing on the work environment.
For example, we won't see where Kwai works, but we still learn a lot about the challenges that he faces in his new work environment and what it means for a young person who's grown up in kind of like an impoverished space.
What that means for him to now be earning an income and how much of that income has to go back home - things like that - trying to contend with trying to live his life, you know what I'm saying.
We focus on the challenges of trying to get out of home and being retained by the home space.
TVSA: What can you tell us about the main characters on the high school scene?
Lunga: We've got the very mysterious young man that came into the world, Noah (Austin Rethabile Mothapo), Mokgadi's (Pebetsi Nolo Matlaila) biological son - he's gonna reveal a lot of his true colours - remember it was quite suspect the way he came into the world.
He's now gonna bring a lot of drama into the Maputla home.
And then we've got the young man by the name of Koloi (Joseph Tshepo Senatle) - he's kind of like a rabble rouser at school - and we're gonna get to meet his family.
He was established quite briefly in Season 6 but now we're investing in his background. He comes from a single parent home and so forth so we'll be exploring that as well.
And then there's a young lady, played by a very dynamic actress (Nkosazana Hannah Mbatha) who became the character of Shadi and she's Dragon's (Julius wa Kgole) niece so she's a character that we're investing in as well. She's part of the Grade 10 class.
Oh yes - I almost forgot! And Clement (Vusi Leremi), who's been with us since Season 1. He brings in a lot of drama with the politics of his father being in jail - that brings in a lot of behavioural issues and stuff. Remember, he's part of this grade 10 class because he failed.
TVSA: Are there any big exits we need to brace ourselves for? We see Lelo's (Amanda du-Pont) still there so -
Lunga: You know what, as opposed to exits, expect some big events. I'm not gonna get into details but expect marriage, weddings, it's gonna be a big juicy... expect relationships that you never thought - people falling in love that you never thought would come together.
It's gonna be that kind of season - and new rivalries that are gonna emerge from Joburg characters with Polokwane characters - that kind of rivalry.
Flash fact: We asked about Alexos (Ter Hollman) but we aren't publishing anything about him so as to avoid spoilers about the current storyline. All will be revealed in the next week.
TVSA: Which storyline are you most excited by in the new season?
Lunga: Mmmmm, it's kinda hard to say 'cos I love all of them. I live in this world. Let's just say it was planted that Lehasa (Cedric Fourie) has got business interests in Polokwane so that's gonna bring in a lot of drama for all our characters, young and old, because now he's venturing into the space where most of our characters emerge from.
It's going to be nice to see all levels to him, a vulnerable side as much as he's playing the villain and so forth. He's a main man.
One more thing... our beloved character Leshole (Thabo Mkhabela), who hasn't had a break... some good things are gonna happen for him. He's gonna have a very nice arc which will move people. He hops on a plane for the first time - let me just say that.