After the sad and shocking death of poor Flower on Meerkat Manor last week, I just can’t take the heartache any more! I need to find a new “animal soap,” and I just may have it with Orangutan Island, premiering November 2 on Animal Planet and airing Fridays (filling in the void left when MM goes on hiatus; the season finale of MM serves as a lead-in to the new series on the 2nd).
Taking place in Borneo, Orangutan Island follows a group of 35 of the title apes who have been orphaned and live on a river island sanctuary. And while the orangs are fun to watch, the seriousness of their situation is an underlying theme of the series: the rapidly disappearing Indonesian wilderness is causing a threat to the survival of their species. Once looked after by humans, these apes are given the chance, on this island, to create their own society and learn how to live free.
As in Meerkat Manor, we get to meet several strong personalities among the main furry characters. Saturnus is the youngest male, who tries to get all the girls’ attention, but is never taken seriously (we’ve all been there, Sat); feisty Daisy takes the transition in stride, while Cha Cha becomes depressed once her human support system is taken away; and poor Nadi is “haunted by her past” (maybe she made a bad Clint Eastwood Any Which Way … movie at some point in her life?).
Right away, a strong storm hits the island. And then the melodrama really heats up when Saturnus, a member of a group of mischievous males called the “Bandit Boys” begins to have a thing for a female named Jasmine. But Hamlet, an older male from a neighboring island, also likes her, and to prove it, he kidnaps her. Saturnus is helpless, until Daisy leads the Bandit Boys in an attack on Hamlet.
All of this in the first two episodes! Considering that apes are more intelligent than meerkats, it is likely that what we will see in Orangutan Island will be even more like a soap opera, with eerily humanlike behavior and emotions. Some of the actors on daytime dramas had better look out — these apes might be closing in on their jobs pretty soon.