The South African domestic drama “Summertide,” on AcornTV, rolls in with an “Everwood” vibe and a beachy setting. Martin (Frank Rautenbach) is a widower and marine biologist who moves back to his hometown in False Bay with his teenage son, Tristan (Jan Combrink), and tween daughter, Lucy (Evangelina Hallock). His family welcomes them with open arms and old resentments. Wouldn’t you know it, Martin’s childhood sweetheart Rebecca (Monique Rockman), a fancy chef who is also back in town, is glad to see him — though that’s complicated somewhat by her romantic relationship with Martin’s brother, Gavin (Tyrone Keogh).
Martin struggles with guilt over his wife’s death (the specifics of which are doled out slowly), and he is determined not to replicate with Tristan the relationship he has with his father (Andre Jacobs). Good luck to him! Tristan gets into some scrapes right away but also strikes up a romance. Lucy becomes obsessed with two local penguins. Gavin resents being perceived as a flaky man child, though he concedes he has earned it.
The miracle here is that “Summertide” is not a murder show or a cop show, at least not in the six episodes made available for review. It is sketched to a human scale, and you can feel the relationships stretch and repair in concert with one another; we see the characters experience different moods, not just different plot points. Everyone here is in a huge moment of transition, either moving or retiring or reassessing or maturing. And each wonders, Why can’t you see me as I am, and especially as I am right now? How dare you think you understand me?
“Summertide” has its soapy elements. Longer arcs about the ecological health of the bay, especially as it relates to shady goings-on among local fishermen, unfurl as the season goes on. The show can afford to be relaxed in its pacing because there are 52 episodes in the first season, two of which are already streaming. That is a lot of episodes, and it engenders in the viewer the same feeling the characters share: We’re in this together for the long haul.
Margaret Lyons is a television critic at The Times, and writes the TV parts of the Watching newsletter.
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