by Akinwande Jordan.
The highly revered Africa Magic has had a plethora of TV series under its belt since its inception but none has survived cancellations like Tinsel. Created by Yinka Ogun, the show aired its first episode in 2008, showing five days a week. Practically every “new school” and veteran actor has appeared briefly or played a major role on that show and that surprised no one. It was new, it was a breath of fresh air at the time, and it launched numerous acting careers. Dare I say it was great television but years have passed and one has to wonder, why is it still on anyone’s screen?
Tinsel primarily follows the story of two rival film companies, Reel Studios, and Odyssey Pictures, and the familial dynamics involved with those attached to those companies. The subplots exploring the interwoven lives of the day players allow the show to be fluid with the genres. It’s a crime show, it’s a family show, it’s also a comedy-drama and that is not unusual for a soap opera.
However, it was the first of its kind on our screens at the time, and rarely do you ever find a television show about the film industry that subverts certain tropes. The acting was stellar and the story was engaging enough to keep families sitting every weeknight. They had newspaper ads to celebrate 250 episodes, and 500 episodes and as of January 21, 2021, they marked their 3000th episode. But somewhere along the line, it went from addictively engaging, to your regular background noise show you use to occupy your mind while you finish up work on the weeknights. And the slope of that gradient is disconcerting.
We can attribute this slope or decline to many factors; a lack of engaging substance and an over-dependence on occasional cringe comedy and suspense or just not knowing when to simply pack it up. The soap operatic cliffhangers holding an overdrawn plot that was once screen worthy and I sometimes find myself cracking up a snack just to catch up on a few episodes when I’m bored but it didn’t use to be like that. Every episode used to be eventful before it metamorphosed into a Twitter joke. And there’s nothing worse than a show becoming a punchline in an online joke.
Who is Tinsel for?
Every show has its demographic or target audience but, in a climate where attention as a currency is valuable and ephemeral, long-form television might not serve any demographic. Every time I flip through channels on the television and it comes up, I try to engage and see if there’s a tint of the early years of the show but it is absent, and one can tell through the writing that it’s no longer aiming to tell a structured story, it’s merely trying to stay afloat. Trying to fill a time slot and that’s not good enough for the escapism of Nigerian television.
Nigerian films might be lacking in standard and finesse but we have decent television, shows like Hotel Majestic, Skinny Girl in Transit, Castle and Castle, and Shuga has all managed to capture our attention in recent years and they all share a commonality in one thing, they ended.
They didn’t carry on for whatever reason, we are unconsciously glad they ended because it gives room for more good television. Sometimes brevity is the best form of storytelling. I mean…look at Grey’s anatomy – it went from being this pop culture phenomenon to a show people are praying to see its last days. Tinsel has suffered and still suffers the same inevitable fate. Tinsel isn’t specifically for anyone, it used to be but now it feels like a Broadway show without a curtain closure.
Nevertheless, although it has become what it has become – it has catalyzed many actors’ careers. The likes of Damilola Adegbite, Osas Ighodaro Ibrahim Suleiman, Joseph Benjamin and Matilda Obaseki ( who plays Angela Dede on the show and spectacularly might I add, she’s probably the one redeeming thing about the show) have all gone on to become movie stars and award-winning actors. The show also provided a lot of opportunities for budding TV writers and directors as the behemoth nature of the show requires rotational directions and writing.
There’s a lot of good to its existence but good doesn’t cut it anymore. I know the show isn’t getting cancelled anytime soon, and no one is calling for its cancellation but something great can still end and when showrunners recognize the summit, they should know it’s time to take a bow and wait for the applause.