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Cape Town – Isidingo, the weekday soap on SABC3 which just turned 14 years old, will soon become a special miniseries.

Isidingo will be a miniseries as the show shifts to one specific storyline filmed entirely on location while Endemol SA and the SABC work on finding new studio space and rebuilding sets after the devastating fire on 13 June.

Endemol and SABC3 have not confirmed when the new miniseries will start airing on TV.

The fire, which engulfed Henley Studios at the SABC's Auckland Park headquarters, completely destroyed the Isidingo set housed in Studio 6, although some of the sets in Studio 7 survived.

A sound control room, vision control booth, recording light control desk, video wall, vision mixing bed and cabling running through the entire studio complex were destroyed.

After multiple enquiries more than a month since the destructive fire, which also took SABC3 off the air for some time, the SABC still refuses to give an estimated value of the damage done to the Henley Studios, or Isidingo specifically.

Estimates run into millions of rands.

Now the soap will once again become a miniseries - for the third time in the show's history - and for at least a month to be broadcast in primetime on SABC3.

New storyline to replace daily shows

Where the two previous Isidingo miniseries ran concurrently during the December festive period as additional episodes to the daily soap broadcast, the new miniseries will effectively replace the daily broadcasts with a newly developed storyline shot on location.

Although a more expensive option than in-studio filming, the new Isidingo miniseries will give the production time to regroup and rebuild before the show returns to its familiar studio format.

Endemol SA and SABC3 also plan to have a media session to present the way forward in terms of storyline and studios.

"The fire has set the production into a different course; the cast and crew are optimistic that the new storylines are going to make for great television," Endemol SA told Channel24.

"Our 14th birthday will be celebrated towards the end of the year as the fire has disrupted all our plans. However, we are excited as plans are going ahead to celebrate this important milestone with our viewers."

- Channel24

A lot of people don't care for Ava Lazar as Santana but she completely embodied the character for me. I bought her as the seductive daughter of the maid who had the Capwell men wrapped around her finger. I love this scene of her and Mason. There is a sense of honesty and anguish in it. I wish she had stayed longer.

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I don't think these have been posted. I just discovered this channel with good promos like Tina disguised as a nun on OLTL.

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I was just watching an episode on Youtube where Haley makes it look like Phoenix attacked her in the hospital. It seems a little more daring and suspenseful than the British soaps but I admit I haven't really checked those out enough. I like Rachel because she seems like a complex character who has interesting interactions. Also, at the end, there was a promo for the next episode in the credits. I know it's a small detail but it looked much sleeker than the weekly promos for US soaps. I love how the ratings are still pretty strong after 20 years. The show makes me kinda want to move to New Zealand.