THE WEEK THAT WAS

Mohabbat Na Kariyo | Geo TV, Fridays 8.00pm

The only novelty about this done-to-death storyline, where rich boy Asad (Junaid Khan) loves poor girl Zara (Hira Mani), is that parts of the serial have been shot in Baku, Azerbaijan. Asad pressures his dominating mum Tasneem (Atiqa Odho, typecast) into marrying him and Zara even as Tasneem plans to break up the marriage as soon as possible.

A couple of weeks after the wedding, the deceptive Tasneem manipulates her son Asad to go abroad to expand the business. She also cunningly plants an attractive woman (the gorgeous Zarnish Khan) there as part of her plans to wreck Asad and Zara’s marriage. As Hira Mani has already started sobbing, let’s hope that Atiqa Odho and Zarnish Khan will at least entertain us with their vile characters.

Khaas | Hum TV, Wednesdays 8.00pm

Khaas had garnered a substantial viewership for tackling a sensitive domestic issue — a man’s conceit leading to the break-up of a marriage. Kudos to the writer for creating a strong character in Saba (Sanam Baloch). But the last episode was a tad disappointing. If the whole point of it was to show the reformation of the conceited Amaar (Ali Rehman Khan), why did Saba’s beloved second husband Fakhir (Haroon Shahid) have to die in the end? Surely, Saba deserved more than anyone else to live happily ever after. Also weak and unnecessary was how a young and healthy Fakhir incessantly spoke about death, and even had a dream about dying before he actually dies in a car accident. Saba refuses to marry the transformed Amaar after her husband’s death, which dealt another blow to Ammar’s ego. Other than the leads, the two promising actors who shone through the serial were Hira Tareen as Salma and Mashal Khan as Sonia.

What To Watch Out For

Bewafa | ARY, Mondays 8.00pm

Totally understandable that when first wife Kinza (Navin Waqar) finds out about husband Ahaan’s (Ali Rehman Khan) secret second marriage, she throws a fit. And who better than Navin Waqar to demonstrate some hysterical sobbing! But later, when Ahaan tries to explain his situation to Kinza, why does she even suggest that he should bring second wife Shireen to the same house where she lives! Definitely some fireworks in store with both wives living together in one house.

Ushna Shah needs to take her performance up a notch because you see undertones of her previous negative role (the evil Nigar of Balaa) in Shireen. Other than being ‘evil’, the situation of both her characters is vastly different.

Published in Dawn, ICON, November 3rd, 2019