Miseducation Review: Starring Buntu Petse as Mbali, Lunga Shabalala as Sivu, Preven Reddy as Jay, Micaela Tucker as Natalie, Mpho Sebeng as Caesar, Baby Cele as Brenda Hadebe and others, Miseducation is a South African series that released on Netflix on September 15, 2023. The teen drama series has been created by Rethabile Ramaphakela and Katleho Ramaphakela. Consisting of 6 episodes with their runtime ranging between 33-42 minutes, the series is now streaming with English subtitles on the OTT platform.
Also dealing out social commentary on certain issues, the latest South African addition to Netflix’s catalogue has turned out to be a colourfully entertaining release. Its premiere further acts as the next step in realising the local narratives’ potential on a mainstream streaming platform.
Miseducation Series Review Contains No Spoilers
Miseducation Review: Discussion
Much like many other teen dramas, this one also starts to flesh out the story about a young girl racing forth in a popularity contest which she believes is the highlight of her life. Mbali is living the life of her dreams, but the wannabe influencer is soon struck after a public humiliation, which was mostly directed at her corrupt politician mother’s actions. However, the sensational scandal which ended with them being evicted from their home on Mbali’s birthday, is also captured on the phones of many of her friends at the time and she eventually turns into a public meme gone viral.
The same incident cuts down her chances of being enrolled at big-shot universities, and she has to turn to the only small-town college that would take her in as she again aspires to attain a skyrocketing social status among her peers.
With 6 relatively shorter episodes in the bag, the first season of the new series maintains its well-paced gossip-driven entertaining ride into a South African campus that isn’t just consumed by its sole obsession with love tracks between the students. Conversely, while the series does take all of those cliche pieces of the experience of growing up into account, it also tackles more serious issues at hand like discrimination, class divide, unreasonable hikes in college fees, sense of belongingness and identity, queer-friendly or phobic instances and a lot more, both verbally and directly.
It takes a rather political stance (even if just on the surface) than just fixating itself on the issue of young adults wanting to get laid. Yes, that’s there too, but the way Miseducation primarily consolidates its plot around an ongoing student body election, I bet there’s hardly any other such teen series that does it so proactively. Not only does this whole scene drive the attention to the importance of voting, but also enlightens us about the stream of dirty politics that runs underneath. Moreover, talking about the prevalence of corruption in higher education institutions is not shied away from either.
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Basing its plot on a more character-driven approach, the Netflix show introduces us to a number of them dealing with their own lives and stories. While the initial scenes leading to the build-up of the core trio’s friendship are formulaically reconstructed on the grounds of pre-existing archetypes, through Mbali, Jay and Natalie we get to dive into stories about a girl dealing with her disgraced politician mommy issues, a gay Indian struggling to strike a meaningful relationship with anyone, and a girl who’s going through an identity rejuvenation and crisis phase altogether.
Plus, the fact that all three of these leading members of the cast look different and share disparate roots and backgrounds only adds to the healthy inclusivity easily incorporated into the series. The normalisation of it all takes an even bigger step through the character of Sivu, a black boy adopted by a privileged white family, and so he never catches on to the idea of where he truly belongs. But the visual diversity of the show extends to portraying that class divide isn’t always a direct case determined by one’s race, and to further illustrate that point, the series presents its equally toxic characters, both black and white.
Depicting it all by directly including them into the narrative instead of incessantly preaching about it makes it all the more efficient, but at the same time the episodes also keep the glossy entertainment coming. There’s a balance between how the series showcases the youth’s problems and their inclination towards fun, which is also how the show keeps a lighthearted outlook, and despite presenting heavy issues, it never gets on the nose.
Buntu Petse, Preven Reddy and Micaela Tucker really own their characters’ misfit attributes and flawed attitudes on their sleeves, thereby making it easier for us to see that their friendship isn’t the most perfect thing in the world, but it isn’t something you’d hate either. Despite Petse and Lunga Shabalala’s characters’ love arc being the first thing to have been thrown onto the table and also it being the propeller of actions that follow later, it still doesn’t take away the spotlight from severe topics and other dramatic subplots unfolding simultaneously (also, thankfully, as it’s not one of the show’s strongest suits; they both helm their roles well, but their chemistry just didn’t sit right with me in the end).
What I didn’t appreciate however was how the show overtly sets up the room for a hefty discussion around influencers and the openly toxic culture that consumes teens, but it never delivers in terms of actually talking about it. As soon as Mbali makes the switch to her new university, that issue seemed to have been dropped like a hat, completely turning us around to face new meet-cutes and whatnot.
If a second season is to happen in the future, I would like to see Mbali take control of her narrative and address her problems instead of running from them or distracting herself from them by paying graver attention to Sivu’s case. We need to see more of her flawed and fractured relationship with her mother, just like we need to see Sivu talking about his feelings of not belonging anywhere with his parents.
Miseducation Netflix Series: Final Thoughts
I wouldn’t mind tuning in for a second season as the first one definitely opens up the possibilities for one. If you’re still wondering whether you should give this show a chance or not, I’ll just say that it’s not necessarily the greatest of the great shows, but you shouldn’t underestimate the South African catalogue of shows or movies on Netflix either. Things are looking up, and with this one we also get to see a different side to the country other than the morbid representations of it we’ve mostly seen covered in mainstream media.
If you enjoyed watching shows like Never Have I Ever and the new reboot of Heartbreak High on Netflix, then you are surely going to enjoy watching this as well, but be prepared for a formulaic seen-before narrative.
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