In the opening minutes of Life Is Wild, a CW series that debuts on Sunday night, a New York family on their way to a new home in the African bush steps out of their van and is confronted with a charging elephant. Sensibly, most of the Brady Bunch-like family hightail it back to the car. But Dad—Dr. Danny Clarke—decides to display his expertise as a veterinarian (or maybe it's knowledge he picked up years before as a Peace Corps Volunteer). He plants himself in the path of the elephant and raises both hands. As a viewer you are expecting many tons of elephant to landing directly on Danny. But no. The elephant makes an about-face and trots gently away. Come again?

In Life Is Wild, shot on location in a South Africa game reserve, the scenery and animals are authentic, but the situations improbable.

Take that elephant. In real life, such an animal, especially one that lived in an area where elephants are hunted, would have trampled or gored Danny. What's the wisest response when an elephant charges? "You get out of sight, you hide," says a friend, who has had the bad luck to meet many an elephant intent on murder. National Geographic photographer Nick Nichols, who takes these animals' pictures, agrees. Only an expert should approach an elephant in the wild, says Nichols, and then only if he or she knows that individual animal. In such a situation a researcher might raise one arm with palm extended in imitation of the greeting elephants give each other with their trunks. Danny's two-hand technique would lead to disaster.

After their miraculous escape from the elephant, the Clarke family moves into the Blue Antelope, a defunct game lodge. The two eldest Clarke children, Katie and stepbrother, Jesse, spend time with a British brother and sister who live conveniently nearby on a wildlife resort for rich tourists. The Clarkes mingle with animals and rich expats. But they do get one chance to see ordinary life for average South Africans: Danny is invited to visit a "village" to help a goat give birth.

The village looks more like a township, one of the sprawling, poor communities on the outskirts of cities where blacks were forced to settle by apartheid-era laws. Danny goes off to help that goat, and, for a moment, it looks as though we will follow Katie and Jesse into encounters with the real South Africa. But Katie doesn't get to meet more than a single black South African. Almost immediately she is inexplicably approached by Tumelo, the son of a doctor, who uses words like "megavertebrates" and shares his dream of becoming a veterinarian, just like her father. Meanwhile, Jesse turns a corner and abruptly finds himself in what looks like a tourist market, where he is befriended by a young white man who gives him tips on where to skateboard. Whew! Safely out of the township without having to face anything you might not see in a suburban shopping mall.

It turns out Tumelo, the future veterinarian, is going to be a regular  on the show. He keeps driving over to the Blue Antelope, hoping to spend time with Katie or her father. But the pilot gives the impression he will be the only major black African character. I hope I'm wrong, and the script permits the family to escape their segregated life on the game reserve. Because Life Is Wild isn't a bad show to watch with the family. My eight-year-old son gave it two thumbs up (literally—he might have awarded more if he had more thumbs). Asked why, he said, "I guess it's the animals." The show reminds me of ‘60s series like Flipper, Gentle Ben, and Daktari. I'm sure none of them was scrupulously accurate, but they featured real live animals in what looked like the creatures' habitat. Maybe further along in the season Life Is Wild will live up to its name and take a few more risks—allowing the Clarkes to venture further outside the resort scene and get to know their human neighbors.

-Karen E. Lange

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