THE WEEK THAT WAS

Ishqiya | ARY, Mondays 8.00pm

Hamna’s fiancé Azeem (Gohar Rasheed) might have felt a tad suspicious about his fiancee’s gloomy disposition, but Hamna’s father Siddiqui (Shabbir Rana) getting hospitalised covered up her real anxiety about her love Hamza (Feroze Khan) being critically injured in a car accident. That was, of course, immediately following an over-the-top scene at the university when he finds out about Hamna’s engagement to Azeem. Feroze Khan is being typecast yet again and should have been portrayed more in love and less like a K-K-Kiran-type psycho (remember Shah Rukh Khan in Darr?) with his intense and aggressive nature. While Hamna prays for the man she loves, she is still going along with her parents’ decision to marry her off to Azeem, and her sister Roomi (Hania Aamir) continues to be clueless of her sister’s state of mind, and carries on with her somewhat disconnected boisterous banter.

Deewangi | Geo TV, Wednesdays 8.00pm

These days characters are not portrayed black-and-white but more grey, so it is difficult to say if someone’s a good guy or a bad one. For instance, we kept thinking what a wonderful man the rich and eligible Sultan Durrani (Danish Taimoor) was for falling in love with and wanting to marry ordinary girl Nageen (Hiba Bukhari), but we were proved wrong! It turns out that the whole kidnapping saga on Nageen’s wedding day was orchestrated by the groom Sultan Durrani only to get back at Nageen for earlier slapping him publicly. As she confronts him, vowing desperately that post-kidnapping she remains pure, he believes her because it was as per his orders that the kidnappers did not touch her. So while poor Nageen is heartbroken and being victimised for being kidnapped, Sultan is burning with revenge. What a horrible, warped man Sultan is turning out to be.

What To Watch Out For

Mehboob Apke Qadmon Mein | Hum TV, Fridays 9.10pm

Director Furqan Adam brings out the best in Sukayna Khan who breezes through her role of the two-faced, unscrupulous Shazia who boldly confronts the aalim that her in-laws take her to, and as the battle of good-versus-evil ensues, she stares into the aalim’s eyes and brazenly answers his innuendo about her evil black magic activities. Even when she sees that she has been spotted by her sister-in-law Sonia (Parizae Fatima), who follows her out of the house right down to the police lock-up where Shazia goes to meet black magician Shamsuddin (Syed Qamar Raza Rizvi) — who wants her to get him get out of jail — Shazia remains undeterred in her quest to win the love of Arsim (Saad Qureshi), her newly-married daiwar.

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 8th, 2020