“Life Is Wild” (Sundays, The CW): Here’s a nice little family drama about a Brady Bunch-style clan (each parent brought a son and daughter into the arrangement) that moves to South Africa for a year to live at their grandpa’s old run-down resort and reconnect as a family. People are saying it’s “7th Heaven” in Africa, and while I’ve never seen “7th Heaven,” enough people have made the comparison for me to accept its validity. I didn’t expect to enjoy the pilot episode, and while it was a little hokey in places, I wound up watching the whole thing and liking some of the characters. I was also impressed by all the wild animals they interacted with, including lions, giraffes, and elephants. Me likey animals. They set up some side stories about the country’s apartheid history that could be developed into something interesting, too. TiVo verdict: I’m not really in the market for a nice little family drama, but if you are, you might check this one out.
“Moonlight” (Fridays, CBS): A vampire who works as a private detective? We’ve seen that before in “Angel,” and probably in a lot of novels that people who love “Angel” have read. “Moonlight” doesn’t do anything new with that nifty premise, and if the pilot episode is any indication, it’s a pretty generic show anyway, with laughably bad dialogue and obvious story twists. Also, it’s on at the same time as “Friday Night Lights,” which is just about the best drama on TV, so there’s really no reason to watch the vampire-detective show. TiVo verdict: Bite me.
