Reviews

Let's face it: Most Canadian sitcoms have been and are currently crap. There are exceptions (I like "Corner Gas," and does "Un gars, une fille" count as a sitcom?). But overall, Canada has produced very few quality thirty-minute comedies.

I was thus skeptical when I watched the pilot on YouTube (I'm American, by the way). It is funny. I laughed out loud, and never felt that it was trying to force its humour. Baber and Yasir are both very funny characters, played by very funny actors. I also think that Sitara Hewitt, who plays Yasir's daughter, has some real potential. My biggest reservation is the lead: Zaib Shaikh, who plays the imam, is easily the weakest member of the ensemble. I hope that this improves over the course of the show, or it will face difficulties.

While this show would quickly perish in American network ratings, I think that it will be able to subsist on CBC, hopefully maturing and gaining depth as it progresses.

(I didn't even mention the potentially controversial set-up, but I just want to note that hardly anyone could find this sitcom offensive. Only fundamentalist Muslims who hate everything Western, and white fundamentalist Christians who hate everything non-Western).

While it's true that nothing can beat the original, the fact is that this is still far funnier and classier than any other comedy on American television. And even then, so many slots, formerly owned by sitcoms, have been filled with (*shudder*) reality television, that any attempt is welcome. Every episode has a strong theme and a unique story (or borrowed from a unique story in the original show). The writing is clever and real. But what most impresses me is the verisimilitude of the characters. Even the minor ones seem like real people, and one can get something of a glimpse of their lives through the way that they act in their shared workplace. In addition, all of the actors who play them seem perfect for their roles. Steve Carell is a very funny man. Why can't NBC just serve as a re-airing conduit for the original? The world may never know. But as long as the original isn't being aired on American broadcast networks, we might as well watch this. 8/10