The Canadian sitcom “Little Mosque on the Prairie” premiered in 2007 and centered on a small Muslim neighborhood in a fictional Saskatchewan city. It ran for 91 episodes over six seasons, finally exhibiting around the globe (it’s streaming on Freevee, the Roku Channel and Tubi). Now its creator, Zarqa Nawaz, has a brand new short-form comedy with a narrower focus however an identical cartoony vibe.
“Zarqa,” created by and starring Nawaz, is on YouTube and follows a divorced Muslim mom in Regina, Saskatchewan. Within the opening moments of the present, she learns on social media that her ex-husband is marrying a youthful girl — a white yoga teacher. Zarqa panics and posts that she is courting a white mind surgeon, which she will not be, and the shenanigans are afoot.
She begins a contrived romance with a pasty neurosurgeon, Brian (Rob van Meenen), although neither of them can inform in the event that they’re truly inquisitive about one another or simply in pulling one over on everybody else. Zarqa needs to indicate off at her ex’s marriage ceremony, and Brian will get a rush from freaking out his tightly-wound, racist mother and father. Including to the rom-com of all of it, Zarqa is stunned and delighted to study an previous faculty flame (Rizwan Manji) has been appointed as the brand new imam at her mosque — and wouldn’t you understand, her ex (Anand Rajaram) may be having chilly toes.
“Zarqa” has a madcap urgency to it, partly as a result of the episodes are barely 10 minutes lengthy and partly due to Zarqa, who’s brusque and pushed and tends to fire up drama. Her grown son recoils from a few of her antics however reminds himself, “We don’t say ‘loopy’ anymore.” Her mother and father lament that she is “a double D: divorced and tough.”
Each “Zarqa” and “Little Mosque on the Prairie” have an exaggerated sitcom fashion; most characters repeat one conduct and categorical one concept, which generally could make each collection really feel somewhat like youngsters reveals with grown-ups in them. On “Mosque,” the central theme was the perceived variations — and lo, the similarities — between Muslims and non-Muslims. On “Zarqa,” the main target is on race. “I promote white folks brown-people issues,” Zarqa tells Brian.
The jokes and observations in “Zarqa” are fairly gentle, however the story is enjoyable, and it’s informed with endearing heat and power. To this point all six episodes of Season 1 and a few of Season 2 are on the CBC’s YouTube channel, with the remaining arriving shortly.
