August 30, 2007

Little Mosque on the Prarie: Season 2

Good news. The Canadian sitcom Little Mosque on the Prarie will return this fall. While the show was not universally loved by Muslims in its first season, I felt that the Muslim community benefited more from having the show broadcast than not. Yes, they didn't portray everything about Islam and the Muslim community correctly in the first season but, then again, who does? Hopefully, there are more Muslims involved with the writing and production for this season than there was last season (when, I believe, only the show's creator, Zarqa Nawaz, and actor Zaib Shaikh (Amaar, the young imam) were the only Muslims involved in the production) to help make the show more realistic in its depiction of Islam and Muslim life. From CBC News:

Little Mosque on the Prairie is back on the Prairies.

CBC's hit TV series about Muslims in a fictional Saskatchewan town is wrapping up production in Regina on its second season.

Producer Michael Snook says on-location shooting for parts of 12 episodes will begin Monday and continue into September. Broadcasts of the second season episodes begin Oct. 3.

"We'll be shooting five days in Regina over the next couple of weeks and we'll be shooting five days in Indian Head," Snook said.

The comedy originated in Regina, although CBC ended up moving more than half of the production to a soundstage in Toronto.

Even so, according to Snook, the sitcom has a strong Prairie component.
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"The vast majority of our crew are Saskatchewan, some of our day player cast are from Saskatchewan and the core production unit in terms of producer, production manager and so on … are all from here," he said.

After a successful pilot season, the series is ramping up production from eight episodes to 20.

Little Mosque on the Prairie will be aired in a number of other markets this year, including France and French-speaking parts of Switzerland and Africa.

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