Tahidi High Review

09/03/10
This was the first episode of Tahidi High or of any Kenyan television show I have yet seen. I enjoyed the program and could clearly see that it was created, written, cast, shot and produced by a solid production team. In this episode, many of the high school student’s parents are coming to school to speak with the teacher about their recent academic performance. The character OJ is unhappy with his exam results and Omosh, his uncle urges him to up his grades. In a seemingly separate story line, Julia’s mother, who has been away from home a long time, returns to check on Julia’s grades. Another student claims she saw one of her teachers kissing her mother and Julia is very unhappy. She watches as her mother and her teacher talk in the class room and afterward, Julia slaps her mother. The principle witnesses this and the three discuss the issue in her office. Julia’s mother is getting a divorce and it is difficult for the whole family. I thought the script was well done. It avoided overly cliché lines, even when dealing with cliché plot points and did not seem overly preachy or didactic when dealing with preachy and didactic issues. The target audience is well rounded as the show can be enjoyed by all ages but is geared towards high school students themselves. Camera shots in this episode were well done and the locations used were appropriate. I enjoyed the repeating shot of a student or teacher listening in to the grade reports and slowly tiptoeing away. This was useful to both characterization and overall aesthetic.

16/03/10
This episode focused on the risk involved in sexual activity. A student named Freddy receives a letter during a class discussion on the dangers of sex. Suspense is built quite well in this episode as the letter passes through several teachers and students who react to the letter though its contents are not revealed until later. Freddy has made a girl in the school pregnant and worried he may have HIV/AIDS. Much suspense builds but eventually the students find out that the girl was only playing a cruel joke on them. The episode did a good job building intrigue and created many problems for the main character, Freddy, but the end result left much to be desired. It was an unrealistic joke and a strange way to end such a serious episode. The cast was good and though not entirely realistic, well done and professional.

23/03/10
In this episode of Tahidi High, the business studies teacher is jealous of another teacher who is getting better results. In class, he raises the pass mark to 80%, which alarms the students who have not been paying attention. One character named Joni (?) finds the exam on a desk and takes it. It was placed purposefully by the teacher earlier. He shows friends who show other friends and soon the whole class skips lunch in order to memorize the answers. Omosh finds out and tells the principle. When the class sits down to take the class, they find not a business studies paper but a physics test. There were several good camera angles in this episode. When the student is wondering whether to take the exam he finds on the desk. The camera zooms in on the paper and the student’s face. Later, the scene in the library where the three boys and three girls are sitting across the room is expert. This episode really showed off the great casting in the show. The reactions of all background characters are very good. I wish I knew Kiswahili so I could understand the apparently very funny dialogue of Omosh and other characters in the show but it is still easy to follow.

30/03/10

This episode of Tahidi High revolved around the theme of fighting. Boys in the school had bet on a football match the night before and when one student joked about not paying, a fight broke out. Meanwhile, Omosh was late to school after apparently being beaten by someone or something. I was unable to find a translation as he was speaking in Kiswahili so I lost a bit of the plot, but suffice to say it had something to do with the overall theme. Another teacher, one who was late to get to class (which led to the students being locked out of the room and being idle when the fight earlier broke out), then gives a very well scripted speech to the class about the situation and does his best to let the students pass. The script of this episode was very well done and the plot appropriately complicated. Camera angles, especially close ups to create a sense of quite and obliviousness while the teacher watched football alone in the computer lab, and the shot trailing Omosh as he limped to school, were well thought through.

-Tyler Martindale