The Sun’s TV Mag reports ITV plans to revive the Wild at Heart TV show. Set in South Africa, Wild at Heart features an English ex-pat veterinarian, who along with his family, sets out to rehabilitate a game reserve and start an animal hospital.
The cast of Wild at Heart includes: Stephen Tomkinson, Deon Stewardson, Nomsa Xaba, Thapelo Mokoena, Lucy-Jo Hudson, Hayley Mills, Amanda Holden, and Olivia Scott-Taylor. Holden broke the news in a weekend interview.
The Sun’s TV Mag says:
Amanda Holden has revealed that there are plans for a revival of much-loved ITV drama Wild At Heart.
The Britain’s Got Talent judge played Sarah Trevanion of the popular show for three series before being forced to quit the show to focus on ITV’s talent competition.
Despite her character being tragically killed off in a shock storyline which saw her burned alive, Amanda has teased that producers have approached her about returning to her role.
She told TV Mag exclusively, which is available in Saturday’s edition of The Sun: “I went out in spectacular fashion. I was burned to death. But now I think they’re thinking of bringing it back.”
“The producer told me: ‘We never found your body!’. I’m like: ‘Film it in Cape Town and I’ll come back!’ It’d be like Bobby Ewing in the shower [in Dallas] – I’ll bob out of the bush having been nurtured by a family of cheetahs.”
Back in 2012, when it was announced that the seventh season of Wild at Heart would be the last, some people pointed to ITV’s expensive Titanic mini-series from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. Here is more from an April 2012 article, in Daily Mail:
After becoming a washout with viewers, Julian Fellowes’s poorly received remake of Titanic has reportedly caused further casualties.
The big budget ITV mini-series has been blamed as the reason behind the popular Wild At Heart being scrapped.
[…]
Insiders on the wildlife drama have pointed the finger at Titanic and its mammoth production cost as the sole reason the seventh series of the show will be its last.
A source told the Daily Mirror newspaper: ‘The feeling is that they sunk so much money into Titanic that they are having to make savings elsewhere and we are bearing the brunt of that.’
Wild At Heart proved a ratings winner with its family orientated story lines and it had an average audience of 7.5 million, which was over twice the amount of people that watched the finale of Titanic.
The source told the newspaper: ‘We’re all gutted that it has come to this. There are shows that would kill for 7.5million viewers.’
The programme, which also stars Lucy-Jo Hudson, Jill Halfpenny and Olivia Scott-Taylor, will now end in a two-hour special to be filmed this later this year which will bid farewell to the safari park where Wild At Heart is based.
With claims that the £11 million Titanic has forced ITV to make savings wherever they can, 64 episodes and seven series have been brought to a premature end.
What do you think? Were you a fan of the Wild at Heart TV series? If ITV brings Wild at Heart back for an eighth season, will you watch? Tell us!
Definitely!!! Just bought the box set for my wife at Christmas and even our daughter, who hasn’t seen any of it is enjoying it.
So please ITV come to your senses, and bring back Wild at Heart as it never deserved to be lost in the first place.
Please bring wild at heart Back fantastic series still watch the old ones
Yes, please, please, please bring back Wild at Heart. It was a grest family drama – so rare these days without slease or violence. Quality programme in great setting as well as informative. You’d do well to keep original programnes rather than entertaining re-makes of existing classics. Leave them alone and give us back our favourite Drama
What a marvelous and fantastic family series this is! I recently bought the complete dvd box and I can’t stop watching anymore! Breathtaking views and amazing cast with my by far favorite actor Stephen Tompkinson. I think he missed a calling … that of a vet. What a natural talent with animals that is!
Please bring it back. Our whole family from a twelve year old has sat glued to our TV watching it as a family. It is the most awesome family series. We need to watch more..
we will most definitely watch it use to love it kept watching it on repeats excellent program
PLEASE continue the series, Wild at Heart, my favorite in many years.
This is by far the best series I have watched in over 60 plus years, Please continue it, I hope for some wonderful reason that DuPessis recovers and returns, I love this series so much that I have watched it over and over again.
Sadly I read that Deon Stewardson who played DuPlessis died a couple of years ago
this was one of the best best best series-watched it through having strep throat – showed how to keep on keeping on
Wonderful series. One of the best of all time.
Love the show!!!!! Please bring it back. It’s so nice and refreshing to watch a show with great story lines without sex, drugs and violence. I’s very enjoyable.
Please renew show it was a wonderful family show to watch.
Please renew, wonderful family show.
Yes, please bring Wild at Heart back. It was a fantastic show.
Please bring back Wild At Heart. I can imagine the vet schools in England, Europe and Africa have many students who decided on the field because of this show. I watch it on Acorn TV in the States , absolutely addicticted to it.
I am addicted to Wild at Heart on Acorn. Please bring the show back