Great doccie, but where's the love story we were promised?

“BEAUTY AND THE BESTER’

- DEBASHINE THANGEVELO

I TOOK umbrage with Beauty and the Bester not because of the production value or compelling content, which it has, but for the misleading nature of the title, trailer and docuseries as a whole.

After all that bedlam over Thabo Bester and Nandipha Magudumana’s last-minute court interdict to stop the three-part documentary from airing on Netflix, which failed, it debuted on the streaming platform.

Naturally, the public’s fascination with this real-life Bonnie-and-Clyde true crime saga propelled it to the forefront as the top trending show on the streaming platform.

By now, South Africans are au fait with the background of Bester faking his death at Mangaung Prison in Bloemfontein on May 3, 2022. On March 17, 2023, the “Facebook rapist” was spotted shopping with Magudumana in Sandton City and subsequently went on the run.

On April 8, 2023, Bester and Magudumana were arrested by Tanzanian authorities in Arusha, Tanzania, and deported to SA.

Of course, the story created a buzz in SA as curious viewers followed all the breaking news headlines and social media posts.