THE WEEK THAT WAS

Meray Mohsin | Geo TV, Thursdays 8.00pm

Life gets harder for Soha (Rabab Hashim) when her sister-in-law Jahan Ara (Erum Akhtar) decides to settle a score with her for marrying her brother Mohsin (Syed Jibran), and destroying a watta-satta arrangement and, hence, Jahan Ara’s marriage. She sneaks into Soha’s room and uses Mohsin’s mobile phone to send a message (supposedly from Mohsin) to Sidra (Nazish Jahangir), the heart-broken cousin who keeps calling Mohsin and making Soha jealous.

In the message that Jahan Ara sends, Mohsin supposedly admits that he has feelings for Sidra. This prompts Sidra to place a call to Mohsin, which Soha attends, and Sidra tells her about Mohsin’s message. The feud soon involves Sidra and her family, and everyone is confused as to why Mohsin is in denial about a message that was sent from his mobile phone. Of course, no one has the sense to realise that the real trouble-maker is Jahan Ara.

Ishq Zahe Naseeb | Hum TV, Fridays 8.00pm

Posh girl Donia (Zarnish Khan) is in love with her employee Kashif (Sami Khan) who, in a short period of time, has not only become a director in her high-profile company but Donia’s father, Jabbar sahib (Manzoor Qureshi), also wants Kashif to marry Donia. Fate takes a sad twist for Kashif’s broken-hearted ex-fiance Gohar (Sonia Khan) who has to go buy a wedding gift for the couple, as per instructions of her boss Samir (Zahid Ahmed), a business partner of Jabbar sahib.

We are still left puzzled about Samir’s identity crisis: why does he dress up as a woman in the dark of the night? Is he developing feelings for Gohar? And why is Gohar so terribly nosy about Samir’s past? — she searches out his real mum and visits her too. While the characterisation and the performances are at par here, the storyline often wavers between the realistic and the overdramatic.

What To Watch Out For

Meray Paas Tum Ho | ARY, Saturdays 8.00pm

Back from her tryst with Shehwar (Adnan Siddiqui) in Islamabad, Mehwish (Ayeza Khan) feels hardly any guilt and remains mostly lost in thought. Husband Danish (Humayun Saeed) plays at being understanding and gentle, but forbids her from working with Shehwar anymore. Mehwish declares to Danish that she is done with her relationship with him, and apprises Shehwar of Danish’s next move to return the 0.5 million rupees that Shehwar had given to her as advance payment.

Shehwar, the devil that he is, offers Danish, much to his bewilderment, that he would pay him anything to divorce Mehwish. Khalil-ur-Rehman’s screenplay may be a tad unrealistic, and sometimes melodramatic, but with just three key characters, so far he has his viewers spellbound.

Published in Dawn, ICON, October 27th, 2019