Randominity

So, versaphile has kindly let me know about this new CBC show called Little Mosque on the Prairie, about a Canadian-born Muslim man from Toronto who moves to a small city in the prairies to serve as the local community's imam. I've since been able to watch the first episode and I'm kind of stunned and amused and excited and afraid to get too excited, lol.

First of all, I cannot believe this show actually got made. I mean, it got MADE. And it stars MUSLIM characters! Who occasionally pray and stuff, like, on camera! And it's set in the Canadian prairies! I mean... what.

I wonder what it's like watching the show knowing nothing about Islam, or only what one can gather from the news. I know I certainly had several sit-up-straight moments, recognizing the words and motions of salat, and noting the way the character named Rayyan (who is HOT by the way) pulled off her hijab as soon as she got home from work. Or gleeing over the fact that Sarah, her mother and a (blue-eyed, blonde haired) convert, practices Islam but does not wear hijab herself. Or the way their Pakistani imam sees Western secular conspiracies around every corner (although unlike the Pakistani imam I met with back home in Regina, this one can actually speak English!).

Also, the star of the show, the town's new imam, named Amaar? Also HOT.

I love the airport security jokes and the bomb jokes and the goat jokes and way the local cop asks Amaar (whom he thinks is going to set up a terrorist cell in their peaceful white-bread town), "are you from Egypt?" and Amaar sighs, "no! I'm from Toronto!" And I love everybody's Canadian "outs" and "abouts" even though people in the prairies don't really say it like that :DD.

Wow, I wonder if this show will stay on the air. I actually found it laugh out loud funny at times, in its cute earnest Canadian way. Canadian comedies do so much better than their dramas, so.... ♥