User reviews

LMOTP is very much in the vein of earlier comedies about a new ethnic group integrating into the new world. OK, Muslims are not AN ethnic group and the Muslims of Mercy are am ethnic mosaic unto themselves. Admittedly the show started off pleasant, but less than brilliant and has been sliding on its charm - a bit thin and predictable. Still it's no worse than a lot of sitcoms. A bit gentle and old-fashioned for some tastes, but is that so bad?

Even though I'm a Muslim I enjoy the sex-and-violence appeal of something like "True Blood" -- totally absent here -- but as a Muslim I find it very relaxing, even therapeutic, to see something about Muslims on TV that is gentle and bloodless. Some of these reviews complain that it's not controversial. Why should everything about Muslims have to be controversial? I'm tired of nearly everything on the tube about my religion and my community dripping with snark or going for the adrenaline. If this is a bit quaint and soporific, even if it is simple and clichéd it shows Muslims with a sense of humor, Muslims as ordinary people who might be your neighbors, and you'd be OK with that. That alone makes this show unique and very welcome.

Arguably we all deserve better on a lot of counts, but like it or not, for humanizing Muslims on TV this is the best we have so far, and on that count it's far better than anything in the USA. Flawed as it is, LMOTP is a welcome first step in the right direction.

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).

Not being a great fan of the CBC network I have to say they might get my attention with this show. This show pokes fun with mild satire at the average persons concept of folks from the Middle East. This will be a hit if the writers can break the stereo typing that seems to come from the medias attempt to blanket just the negative elements of everyday life. CBC's leap of faith is to be commended. I don't know if an American network could pull this off as their sitcoms seem to be floundering for the last decade or so. I'm old - poke - poke 50 years old. I am willing to give this show a chance - beats the heck out of all these other shows they base on life. Thank you CBC.

Having caught the first episode this evening, I was pleasantly surprised that the CBC has produced a quality comedy, even in light of the controversial content. This show should earn notoriety through its fine acting, intelligent commentary, and its combination of palatable slapstick and wry humour, thankfully with heavier emphasis on the latter. Instead the controversy behind the fact that it is primarily about a group of people that follow a religion that has been completely demonized in the western world has powered its media attention. Their is nothing about this comedy that should incense people, it is not a Muslim extremist justifier, it is not an attempt to integrate violent people into docile Canadian culture. It is just what it should appear to be: a fish-out-of-water comedy with a relevant, modern twist. The hatred and prejudice that has been spewed about this show (weeks before it aired even its first episode) is completely unjustified (and plain old racist in my opinion) can only show that those doing the spewing haven't even watched the show, and due to their own shortcomings, probably never will. Too bad, cause its damn funny.

My partner and I laughed out loud many times during the one episode we have seen so far. The humour is based on townspeoples' exaggerated fear of the innocent actions of a group of bungling Muslims trying to set up a mosque in the basement of an Anglican church.

The comedy rips along at such a pace the show is over in what seems like a few minutes. It is not at all like your usual TV sitcoms with long stretches of laugh track after every lame joke.

There are many juicy characters. The humour is not based on cheap insults, the way so many sitcoms are.

It has so much fun with stereotypes, both poking fun at them and demolishing them.

It is not degrading to Muslims, any more than your average sitcom is degrading to Christians. You enjoy and love all the batty characters.

The handsome young Imam is the straight man, who acts as a foil to the eccentrics in his congregation.

Little Mosque on the Prairie surprises me, but only because I can't believe it's still on the air. The only reason this is on TV because of all the hype it got, I can't remember the last time CBC pumped up a show and ran so many ads for a show as it did for Little Mosque on the Prairie. And adding to the hype was the big "controversy" about how the CBC would present Muslim Canadians in a TV comedy. Oooooooo! Have you seen it? So controversial! I can't believe it's still on the air because it's so controversial and edgy, like most CBC shows. No wait, like most pathetic CBC comedies (Air Farce and pretty much everything since Kids in the Hall except Twitch City and This Is Wonderland which they canceled for some unknown reason, probably because it was actually good), it is completely generic, inoffensive to absolutely everyone, and completely unfunny. Little Mosque on the Prairie should be put down like the lame duck that it is.

I thought it was funny. Little jokes about the misconceptions and prejudices westerners have about the eastern religions and the Arab nationals.

"Muslims are known for their sense of humor." Not a really funny punch line, but non the less, at least someone is brave enough to try something like this in Canada, the only country where you can get away with it. Sure it has its short comings. The accents are thick. The jokes a little bit in the closet. The whole praying scene was...incorrect. The mingling left much..........undesired.

But at the end of the day, I would take this willingly over anything else the media has to say about Muslims nowadays. I hope the show is a success so that it can get to the point where it can the explore real issue: that we Muslims are just like every other person on this earth - human beings. We have our short comings. We have overbearing parents. Converts don't know anything about tradition. Our Imams are not perfect. We argue about moonsighting All in all, a commendable attempt, ten outta 10 for trying.

For the first three seasons this show was charming fun. Obviously low-budget, the production values of the first season looked like it was made by three friends with a camcorder. And the drama was always extremely low-stakes, and everybody (including the antagonists) all seemed to get along really well. It remained very fun, something like a Muslim "Andy Griffith Show," and I'll give credit to the ensemble cast - while the show centered on the new imam, really he was the straight man. The show gave just as much focus to about ten other characters, all of whom were likable and funny. The writing could be corny, but got better over time, and in particular the melodrama of season three was well done...

More than any other show I've ever seen, though, the show jumped the shark, and I wish it hasn't gone on past three seasons. The obvious problem was that the show shifted focus onto the conflict between Amaar and Rev. Thorne. Neither character was well-written, neither actor was good enough to carry the show themself, and anyway the strength of the show was the ensemble cast, which got pushed to the side in favor of a new character. Additionally, Carl Rota was the strongest actor and probably the best character on the show, and he left in the middle of season 4.

I live in the US and ordered the season 2 DVD set off Canadian Amazon. I was disappointed that there were no extras on the DVD aside from really inane commenting on a couple episodes by the show's producers.

Little Mosque on the Prairie is awful. Why do Canadian sitcoms on CBC have to be so terrible all the time? This show was written by a public school creative writing class on "wacky fun comedy day" and acted by community theatre volunteers who weren't quite good or convincing enough to get parts as extras in a Paris Ontario production of Hamlet starring the local barber as Hamlet and by the way the local barber has a lisp and is 92 years old. Every one of these characters is so awful and the actors are so horribly sent from hell awful that I get physically sick and angry watching them spasm all over my TV screen spitting out the puerile vomit inducing garbage the idiot writers and director gave them to say. This dog vomit of a show lasted more than one episode which is proof that the CBC seriously does not care one bit about if the shows it produces are good or liked by Canadians, they just keep spending our money on whatever garbage they want especially when the star of this show, the guy playing the Muslim imam, is in a relationship with the head of CBC and ended up marrying her! That's right this awful show stayed on the air and in my mind shouldn't it be criminal that tax payer dollars were directed by the head of CBC to a show because her boyfriend was on it? It's disgusting and these people should be thrown in jail.

That was probably the funniest line, after: "My parents never fasted...they are huge." This isn't edgy comedy-- its light-hearted satire on some very serious issues. The writers sure addressed some difficult issues like Saudi's obsession with money with a lot of humor (Baber "The Saudis couldn't see the moon if it was spurting with gold". The acting is pretty good -- all the actors did a superb job, although the accents were kind of thick. The show's creator based the show on some of her experiences growing up in Regina, so it'll be interesting to see a Muslim woman's perspective of small-town Canada. The white people portrayed in the show were pretty cool. This sitcom may not last after the 8 taped episodes, but it was well worth the effort CBC! Thanks!

This debut rated high on my skepticism scale - even though I thoroughly enjoyed it and its originality, I still have reservations as to how many "raghead" gags you can cram in 30 minutes for a sustained period? The pilot from CBC.ca is very different from the typical sitcom - the new Imam (priest/rabbi) is chiding his mother for his daring to turn his back on "success" and using what are ordinarily everyday phrases lands himself in Customs as a threat! In the town itself, the café proprietor who is rather Shia (fundamentalist) has conflicts with the Sunni (progressive) convert-wife of one of the the local contractors who started the tempest in a samovar...

An Anglican priest rents his community hall to serve as a mosque for the Muslim section of society over in suburban Canada much to the shock of the immediate "regular" white community who proceed to react in a manner not unlike American ultra-conservative Rush Limbaugh radio-host! The jokes and the threads of plot seem like a one-shot movie rather than a prolonged TV-series, a la "My Beautiful Laundrette" of 22 years gone by or "The Guru" or even "Touch Of Pink" but we shall see what happen when next the muezzin is issued for the faithful to judge - time to roll up the prayer-mat! http://bajanreporter.blogspot.com/

I was reluctant to watch this show because CBC hadn't had much luck with comedies in my opinion. I was wrong to stay away... Little Mosque on the Prairie is one of THE best TV shows I've ever seen. I absolutely love it! It is clever with some very quirky humor and well thought-out drama that a hell of a lot of American shows would be jealous of. And when you factor in the superb depiction of small town life you have to admit the show takes perfect to a whole new level. Little Mosque on the Prairie is a fabulous, charismatic, and a brilliantly wild ride with great actors and actresses to keep you compelled for a good long time. I hope you watch and enjoy it as much as I do.

It's not at all surprising that the CBC network has taken this decent idea of a Muslims living in rural North America and drained all of the fun, all of the comedy and all of the relevance out of it. What we are left with is a boring, tasteless, bland, irrelevant yawnfest of a nothing show that can only interest the CBC's core audience of 75-90 year old farmers who have an antenna and still only get three channels. Where is the funny? Where is the drama and relevance? It's just one dimensional characters wandering from one slapsticky gag to the next. We get it already! Muslims and white country folk are different! How funny can it be to put over the top conservative Muslims in the same room with over the top conservative Christians again and again and again and again while repeating the same jokes and the same results. You could end every joke and every scene with "they don't understand us because we're soooo different!" They might as well have called this show "The We Wear Different Clothing Than You Hour! Look At My Strange Hat!" The jokes belong in a 1950s sitcom and were probably actually stolen from a 1950s sitcom. Any child can see these jokes coming from ten miles away. An awful show and another shame for the CBC, I am starting to think we should stop funding them altogether when they seem completely unable to change. Air Farce and Little Mosque? We deserve better than this.

The first season was great with good timing and character development. So far it seems to me the second season is destroying what the first season created (only seen 4-5 shows of second season). The characters no longer seem consistent. Too often the writers go for a cheap and poorly delivered joke. Of course giving the quality of the writing it is hard to see how the characters could have delivered the lines well. I watch on purchased DVDs as it is not otherwise available in the USA. I am very hopeful that the third season is better but am reluctant to put my money to find out. The other reviews seem all over the place and based on the difference between the first and second seasons, I can see why.

Ken Harstine

PS:

I bought the fourth season as a preview looked promising. Still very poorly done. Can't understand what happened. Same characters but now all wrong.

This series just gets worse and worse. Poorly written and just plain not funny! The premise is excellent, but the writer's inexperience shines through. By trying so hard to offend no one they end up insulting everyone. Now into the second season the desperate cast have stopped waving their arms about, and resorted to that patronizing, smug, "Oh, silly you" style acting that comes with a no laugh script. They roll their eyes and shake their heads at each other as if to say, aren't we zany? Isn't this funny? Well, no, it's not actually. Gum disease is less painful. No wonder, with the exception of Corner Gas, Canadians generally avoid Canadian TV. Come on CBC you're suppose to be our leading station showcasing the best of Canadian talent. Pull the plug on this amateurish mess.

I loved it. There were some rough edges, and I didn't laugh at all the jokes, but I did laugh out-loud at a few of them and that is rare for me, especially when I am sitting by myself.

It's not an "edgy" comedy show, no one is skewered. I enjoy edgy humour sometimes but I find gentle humour refreshing. I am looking forward to seeing the characters developed as I liked them all.

The only "message" I got from the first episode is that the differences in religions and ethnicities are on the surface but underneath those differences lie much stronger similarities in human emotion and personality types.

While some of the situations relied on misconceptions between Muslims and non-Muslims it was also about young verses old and city verses small town and traditional verses modern.

This program is going to the top of my "don't miss" list.

I make my mix CDs starting with a song or two in the approximate middle between totally rocking out and mellow and work my way to completely mellow and then put in the most balls out song that seems to fit that everyone hasn't already heard a hundred times. "Little Mosque on the Prairie" bounces between stuffy and risqué amplifying the effect of the latter with great impact. Sure, there is a lot of throw back (old) humor and it's campy without trying which makes it seem lacking in nuance, but it is definitely funny at points. It gets a little slap-sticky instead of edgy in the cultural divide department. But it sort of works

Little Mosque on the Prairie was so over-hyped by CBC that I am actually angry. All those advertisements probably cost a whole lot of money, mostly the tax dollars that CBC is given to stay on the air obviously, plus the tax dollars that were wasted just making this show.... it makes me seriously angry.

And the hype was a terrible idea. Sure a lot of people watched the premiere, and it hitched onto the whole "Corner Gas" phenomena which was huge at the time (before Corner Gas became a bad show itself) by setting itself in Saskatchewan, but as soon as anyone saw it they realised how awful it was. People were actually worried it would be too offencive! The show is somewhere on the level of offensiveness scale between peanut butter and a glass of water. If you are offended by this show I hope it is the atrocious attempts at comedy that are offending you. The writing is so predictable and so elementary that it makes me vomit in my mouth just thinking about it. These people actually get paid to write this garbage! The acting is the show's real undoing though. Not a single one of these characters can deliver their lines in at all a believable way. It's hard to tell if it is the writing or the horrible acting that ruins every possibility for a joke/laugh in this show. The two main characters, Amaar and Rayyan, couldn't act their way out of a dollar store paper bag. They are seriously two of the worst actors I have ever seen on a TV show, and they are the main cast members for some reason! What is CBC thinking?

(Pardon for coming in so late to this forum, but I have just found the show and am still in the first season in catching up.) Allow me to preface these comments by stating that I am a 54 year old Christian, of the Southern Baptist denomination, and a licensed minister to families to boot. I am enjoying the show and I'm excited about the prospect of learning more about Muslims in daily life. Of course, I realize that the Muslims portrayed here are not entirely accurate, as is nothing portrayed on television, but I'm hoping for some insight!

I do have some "insider" thoughts on this program, particularly the episode which depicted a high church minister - an arch-deacon I think, if you'll allow me. As I said, I've been Christian for over half a century and have lived in close contact with similar beings throughout. And yes, I've run across a few Christians - and Christian ministers - who are represented by the Anglican arch-deacon and a few other "Christians" on the program.

HOWEVER, these are NOT the majority in Christian churches. And yes, there are subtle-to-huge variances within the Christian ranks. But like I said, 50 years, lots of experience... I was disturbed with these characters' whole attitudes, from condescension toward a fellow minister (the church pastor), to their near-alcoholism passion for wine and their greed (i.e. the arch-deacon touching the full collection plate with joy and insisting on a "take" of the offering).

Please understand that the average Christian is much like I imagine the average Muslim to be: loving God, revering the faith, respecting the religion, but living in the world realistically. Yes, some "Christians" (note the quotes) as they call themselves are just fakers and takers. But I hope to see the show develop some decent real Christian characters who will represent more real-life examples of us.

We, by the way, respect Islam (when we take time to learn about it) and the devotion and love of God as felt by true Muslims. Our faiths share so very, very much - history, the Talmud/Old Testament, Jewish roots and prophets, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ... Jesus/Isa even! Ignorance, in my humble opinion, is what harms both our families. I hope this program can serve to quench fires of ignorance and bigotry by helping both faiths see our similarities.

I like this show because of the content, and the idea behind it. Giving us a look at what the Muslim community goes through (and I'm sure that they have a harder time in America and real life for that matter).

The first season was painful, I'm not going to lie. But there was something endearing about the show that made me and my husband want to watch it more. A lot of shows have first seasons that suck, because basically they are laying groundwork, and doing a little experimenting. I see this entire show as an experiment to how a Muslim sitcom would survive. Nowadays it seems that sitcoms are sexual and offensive. I found the fact that even cursing was held back a lot on this show a refreshing change.

I have not yet finished watching the last season yet because of only recently discovering the show on hulu, but I will be sad when I do complete it. I believe that the show has grown, the characters and writing has grown, and made it possible to connect with the characters.

To all the negative reviews: I'm sorry it isn't your cup of tea, but I wouldn't call people idiots for liking the show. My advice to people thinking about watching, make it through to the middle of the second season before making a decision about the show itself.

I was really hoping that this would be a funny show, given all the hype and the clever preview clips. And talk about hype, I even heard an interview with the show's creator on the BBC World Today - a show that is broadcast all over the world.

Unfortunately, this show doesn't even come close to delivering. All of the jokes are obvious - the kind that sound kind of funny the first time you hear them but after that seem lame - and they are not given any new treatment or twist. All of the characters are one-dimensional. The acting is - well - mediocre (I'm being nice). It's the classic CBC recipe - one that always fails.

If you're Muslim I think you would have to be stupid to believe any of the white characters, and if you're white you'd probably be offended a little by the fact that almost all of the white characters are portrayed as either bigoted, ignorant, or both. Not that making fun of white people is a problem - most of the better comedies are rooted in that. It's only a problem when it isn't funny - as in this show.

Canada is bursting with funny people - so many that we export them to Hollywood on a regular basis. So how come the producers of this show couldn't find any?