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The Best TV Shows on SABC 3

Every SABC 3 Show Ranked From Best To Worst

With its programming history stretching from 1995 to 2024, SABC 3 offers an impressive lineup of over 15 shows. MTN Gladiators and Isidingo represent the pinnacle of SABC 3’s programming, launching in 1995 and 1998. Stay up-to-date with over 15 of SABC 3’s elite series, with our list refreshed for November 2024.

  • High Rollers
    High Rollers (2013)8.0

    High Rollers is a South African television drama series-turned-telenovela created by Joshua Rous and Luke Rous and produced by Rous House Productions which is an inter-generational family drama set against the backdrop of the glamorous and backstabbing world of gambling.

  • Celebrity MasterChef South Africa
    Celebrity MasterChef South Africa (2015)8.0

    A spin-off from MasterChef South Africa, in which celebrities who have no experience in the food industry attempt to turn into a MasterChef and win money for their charity. The contestants are the ones feeling the pressure and breaking a sweat, and this time round the names and faces that greet us are more than a little familiar.

  • Strictly Come Dancing South Africa
    Strictly Come Dancing South Africa (2006)7.0

    Strictly Come Dancing is a South African reality dance competition television series produced by Rapid Blue and based on the British show of the same name in which celebrities are partnered with professional Latin and Ballroom dancers and must work each week on perfecting a dance routine, with public voting deciding a weekly elimination.

  • Tropika Island of Treasure
    Tropika Island of Treasure (2008)7.0

    Tropika Island of Treasure is a South African reality competition television series. The show features an equal number of South African celebrities and public contestants competing in a luxurious, paradise-island location for a cash prize.

  • MasterChef South Africa
    MasterChef South Africa (2012)7.0

    Aspiring chefs go up against one another in a culinary competition that requires them to impress the judges by preparing various types of dishes and become the ultimate winner.

  • The Taste Master SA
    The Taste Master SA (2020)7.0

    SA’s hottest baking talent are put to the test with a series of challenging tasks in the hopes of becoming the next culinary sensation.

  • Crown Chasers
    Crown Chasers (2022)7.0

    Those who competed for the crown were placed in real-life Miss South Africa scenarios that included a series of challenges. These were based on the four pillars of Miss South Africa – duty, championship, empowerment, and beauty. All the finalists moved into Miss SA HQ from where they were given tasks that tested their ability to showcase their interpretation of these four pillars. Their entrepreneurial and business skills were put to the test; they were asked to find innovative ways to encourage tourism, to show support for female-owned businesses, to raise money for charity, or showcase aspects of heritage. A challenge winner was selected each week by the judging panel.

  • Amazon: The Lost World
    Amazon: The Lost World (2020)5.0

    The series digs for remains of some of the earliest Amazonians, seeking clues to how villages grew, and how the jungle itself was tamed for agriculture on a massive scale.

  • Isidingo
    Isidingo (1998)4.3

    South African soap opera centering around the lives of the wealthy Haines family, the Matabanes, and the lives of the inhabitants of the mining town Horizon Deep.

  • Ready Steady Cook South Africa
    Ready Steady Cook South Africa (2024)2.1

    In Ready Steady Cook, two teams - a Red Tomato and a Green Pepper - compete in a Red Kitchen and a Green Kitchen, together with a South African chef on each side and paired with enthusiastic home cooks, as they are challenged creatively with a mystery bag of ingredients in a 20-minute cook-off.

  • The Masked Singer: South Africa
    The Masked Singer: South Africa (2023)1.0

    Celebrity contestants compete in singing competitions, all while under complete disguse. The panelists must make their identity guesses with the help of clues and voices. Each night, the least popular Masked Singer is eliminated and must reveal their identity until there is just one winner.

  • MTN Gladiators
    MTN Gladiators (1995)N/A

    The show pitted contestants in a variety of physical events against the 'Gladiators', who would attempt to prevent them from achieving maximum points on a variety of games. After this, the two contenders would race each other on the Eliminator, an assault course containing climbing, balancing, and cargo nets. The contender with the most points received a half second head start for every 1 point they were in front by.

  • URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika
    URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika (2006)N/A

    URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika is a South African science fiction animated television series created by the animation department of Octagon CSI, which later became Clockwork Zoo. It started airing in October 2006, and ran until November 2009. It chronicles the adventures of a gang of teenagers who live in a futuristic Cape Town, renamed iKapa City, the last known city on the planet, as they fight the evil industrialist overlord Maximilian Malice. Pax Afrika, the son of the missing explorer Zingela Afrika, discovers that he has ancestral powers that allow him to see flashes of the future. Together with his friends, emo mechanic T-Man, hacker girl Keitu, and Una, Malice's rebellious daughter, Pax plans to find his father and save the city from Malice Industries. But his fate is also tied to the mysterious, hidden city of URBO - an environmental El Dorado located somewhere in the ruins of Africa.

  • The Ultimate Braai Master
    The Ultimate Braai Master (2012)N/A

    Teams of two trek the great outdoors and barbecue their best dishes in hopes of attaining culinary glory and cash prizes in this cooking competition.

  • Bedford Wives
    Bedford Wives (2017)N/A

    Bedford Wives is a South African comedy–drama television series which follows the lives of four Bedfordview women and a community of criminals who, on the surface, exude pristine and perfect lives - but behind closed doors are revealed to have skeletons and secrets.