…but how long will it take The CW to realize that it’s been forty years since “Daktari” and that there might not be a market for such a series in 2007?

Oh, wait: do you people even know what “Daktari” is? Sorry about that. Sometimes, I let my inner TV geek out to play and forget how to interact around normal human beings. Long story short, it was based on the movie, “Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion,” and it focused on the family of Dr. Marsh Tracy, a veterinarian at the Wameru Study Center for Animal Behavior, in East Africa, as they protected animals from poachers and whatnot. Basically, it was a pleasant family drama that gave producers an excuse to trot out lots of jungle beasts…and, honestly, that’s exactly what “Life Is Wild” is shaping up to be.

The panel for the show was a unique one in that the show is filmed in South Africa, so the cast appeared live via video, courtesy of a satellite link-up, but the conversation proved a little stilted at times, due to the few seconds of delay between us, and, ultimately, the most interesting part of the conversation wasn’t even audio; it was visual. A couple of the show’s animals, including a sleepy lion cub and a cheetah, appeared during the course of the event, and they were nice moments, but they left you wondering, “So is this what we can expect from the show itself? Will the opportunity to see these animals be the only real reason to tune in?”

You can actually see me in the lower left-hand corner of this shot. Note how hard I’m working.

Theoretically, the answer is “no.” At the very least, if the enthusiasm of South African actor Atandwa Kani is anything like his acting ability, he’ll be worth watching.

Of working on a big Hollywood production, Kani says, “It’s pretty amazing, because I think the only thing we see of Hollywood in South Africa is on TV and on the big screen. So when you have it, when you become part of it, and it becomes right in your face, it’s out of this world. It’s sort of surreal. I don’t think it’s hit me yet that I’m in this production. I don’t think it’s really hit me yet. And when it does, I think I’ll just faint, because it’s every actor’s dream to get to that standard, to the level in production that they produce. There’s a lot of South African actors that would love this opportunity. And to be in a production like this, it’s magnificent.”

I’m sure it is. And I’ll even give it a chance, because it really does look gorgeous. But I just don’t know if my interest will last…and I’m even more skeptical that the viewing audience’s will.