Escape to the country with 10 series on DStv in October

No cellphones, just vibes. We’re living in the moment as we “go country” on DStv this October. Look out for Wild West reenactments in Yellowstone star Kevin Costner’s The West, the Property Brothers’ down-home ranch series Chasing the West, and a classic reality competition series braving the Karoo in Alone: South Africa, while Atlanta-based farmer Jamila Norman helps us feel our cottagecore fantasies in her new series, Homegrown.

Whether you want to build a cabin in the woods, relive the Duttons’ lives in the Paradise Valley in the Yellowstone saga, or run away from modern madness to go live in a cave, you can start your journey on DStv. 

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Go country with 10 DStv series this October

Kevin Costner’s The West

Yellowstone star Kevin Costner and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin teamed up to create this eight-part history of the American West during the time of westward “expansion”. The series’ mix of interviews and reenactments focuses on the clashes between government and military-backed settlers – including missionaries, hunters, gold prospectors, slavers, ranchers and other land-grabbers – and Native Americans like the Lakota Sioux, Comanche, Cayuse, Blackfoot, and Miami, who had thousands of years of experience living in the West’s unique environments.

Watch Kevin Costner's The West on Sundays at 8:15PM on History Channel 186.

Chasing the West 

Before they became TV’s favourite estate agents, The Property Brothers, Jonathan and Drew Scott, grew up on a ranch. Now they’re helping people who’ve gotten Yellowstone Fever to find their dream Wild West homes, from mining towns, to remote ranches. But the job doesn’t stop there. Jonathan and Drew stick around to show the city slickers the ins and outs of animal and crop care, the 24/7 realities of country life and, most importantly, how to be good neighbours. 

Watch Chasing the West Season 1 on Mondays at 9PM on HGTV Channel 177. All previous episodes available on DStv Stream.

Coming soon: Alone: South Africa

The 12th season of Alone takes 10 tough survivors into the Great Karoo desert, where they’ll need to live off the land and survive by their wits – last competitor standing wins! This is the first time that Alone has shot in a semi-desert region, but the survivalists, including an Australian and a New Zealander, are being dropped off on the shores of a lake, where there’s abundant game … including baboons. Uh oh. Better get those shelters and fires built.

Watch Alone: South Africa Season 12 from Thursday, 30 October at 7:25PM on History Channel 186

Homegrown

There’s no cottagecore dream without a little vegetable patch and some fruit trees, and this series will help you to figure out how to achieve your live-off-the-land fantasy. Atlanta-based farmer Jamila Norman is helping families to transform their outdoor spaces into functional backyard farms while exploring the joy and benefits of growing your own food. Whether they have an inner-city handkerchief of land, or space enough for a full rural hobby farm, Jamila will help them use the soil efficiently.

Watch Homegrown Season 1 on Sundays 12PM on HGTV Channel 177. Four new episodes each Thursday.

Barnwood Builders

You can’t make them like they used to? Well, what if you had the wood? In this celebration of frontier-style resourcefulness, Mark Bowe and his crew of West Virginia master craftsmen salvage old growth timber from antique barns and cabins, then give it a second life as they build modern homes. This season they build a cabin in the Smoky Mountains, visit a feed mill from the 1800s, and explore local history with a craftsman in Virginia. 

Watch Barnwood Builders Season 12 on Thursdays at 9PM on Discovery Channel 121. All previous episodes available on DStv Stream.

Maine Cabin Masters

Designing, constructing, revamping and repairing log cabins in harmony with the landscapes and history of Maine is a passion for the family business of builder Chase Morrill, his brother-in-law Ryan, sister Ashley, and best friend Lance. This season we’ll see them tackle the maze of rooms in a family’s legacy home to see whether they can make room for their changing needs. Please note that episodes are streamed out of order, and from across assorted seasons. 

Watch Maine Cabin Masters Season 9 on Thursdays at 8:05PM on Discovery Channel 121. All previous episodes available on DStv Stream.

Swamp Mysteries

If ranch life is too settled and urban for you, hop on a boat with Atchafalaya River Basin alligator hunter Troy Landry and his deckhand Pickle. This season we’re in for a wild ride as they team up with a local archeologist to search for the remains of an ancient Native American civilisation. Then Troy and Pickle board Timmy Aucoin’s “log dog” boat to relocate that treasure trove of old-growth cypress logs that they spotted last season.

Watch Swamp Mysteries Season 3 Thursdays at 7:25PM on History Channel 186. All previous episodes available on DStv Stream.

Landman

Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan takes us to the wild, rural oil fields of Texas for Dallas-style drama. Rough-and-ready crisis manager Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton) solves problems for M-Tex Oil tycoon Monty Miller (Jon Hamm) and his wife Cami (Demi Moore) at work, while working a “second shift” at home as dad to his rebellious adult son Cooper (Jacob Lofland) and teen princess, Aynsley (Michelle Randolph). The series splits focus between billionaire city life, and the thrill of roughneck ranching.

Binge Landman Season 1 on DStv Stream and on Showmax.

Where the Wild Men Are With Ben Fogle 

If you really want to throw your phone into a volcano, follow Ben Fogle as he travels to remote locations to meet people who rejected the rat race in favour of a life less ordinary in Norway, Portugal, Italy, Kenya, USA, Chile and Spain. Among the people he’ll visit this season is Arthur, a hunter-gatherer with a PhD in botany, who’s  now living deep in the forests of Canton, Maine. Episodes are streamed out of order, and from assorted seasons. 

Watch Where the Wild Men Are With Ben Fogle Season 11 from Wednesday, 15 October at 7PM on BBC Earth Channel 184.

Yellowstone

Throughout writer-creator Taylor Sheridan’s epic saga of ranchers vs land developers, patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner) leads his family’s battle against the powerful consortiums who’re snapping up land in Montana’s Paradise Valley – from farms, to nature reserves and Native American reservations – in the name of building a new city for the super-rich. And you can soak up the Duttons’ history in two prequel series, 1923 and 1883, with Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, and Tim McGraw.

Binge Yellowstone Season 1-5, 1923 Season 1-2, and 1883 Season 1 on Showmax.