THE WEEK THAT WAS

Inteha | ARY, Fridays 8.00pm

happy family is shattered after learning of their father’s (Javed Sheikh) other secret family. Such stories have been dramatised before but have explored the subject with care, deconstructing the emotions and pain of each protagonist. This show follows the trend of Indian-style ‘Star Plus’ serials that rely on sensationalism, over-reaction and melodrama.

Atiqa Odho plays the first wife; cool, calm and elegant, she never imagined her husband could ever betray her, and makes the mistake of allowing the second wife into her household. Her children are all grown up but, despite their elite education and business accomplishments, are reactionary, mean-spirited and surprisingly insecure. Sabreen Hisbani plays the second wife, loud, uneducated and devious, with an equally cunning daughter (Sehar Afzal) and a lazy son.

The story is a puppet show designed to maximise the clashes of wills and competition between the haves and have-nots. Apart from the first wife, not one is allowed self-reflection or resilience, and the negative characters are allowed no redeeming qualities. This is a mass market commercial project that is getting ratings, but anaesthetising its audience against any sort of critical thinking.

Meri Tanhai | Hum TV, Mondays 8.00pm

The star of this show is Syed Jibran as Ali Murad, a broken, bitter man, trying to earn some sort of redemption from the daughter he abandoned.

Maryam (Kubra Khan) finally visits the Pakistani family that forced her father to divorce her mother, to find out that nothing has changed. Once again, the parents are trying to push a forced marriage, this time between Khizer (Azaan Sami Khan) and his cousin (Ameema Khan), to keep their demanding brother-in-law Anwar (Hasan Niazi) happy. As with all families, they are unaware that all of them dance to the tune of the most dysfunctional or abusive member of the clan, to maintain façades of public respectability.

Ameema’s character was shown as soft and flexible in the initial episodes but now she takes on a darker, negative shade, insisting on a one-sided relationship. This story is strong but requires more depth, and character-building to justify the number of episodes it has reached. This serial’s biggest plus points are the way it reminds the audience that people from other cultures and traditions are also human, and their feelings are also worthy of care and respect.

Daayan | Geo TV, Mon-Tues 8.00pm

Anyone who thought Daayan could not get more ridiculous was proved wrong by the last few weeks’ episodes.

Nihal (Mehwish Hayat) miraculously recovers from major abdominal wounds with just plastic surgery to her face and, despite looking exactly the same, everyone has to pretend not to recognise her. Not only does Nihal recover, she takes lessons on how to be a femme fatale and an English-speaking nanny. The show is set in a conservative, traditional feudal family but, instead of a sensible uniform, the nanny they hire is dressed in overly form-fitting westernwear and strange contact lenses, which are meant to be fascinating, but look scary.

While Mehwish Hayat must have had a whale of a time glamming it up, one can only pity the writer whose story has been shredded and reshaped into a clumsy pantomime. Hira Mani, in particular, deserves some kind of award for playing the first wife, who was jealous of a poor woman covered in a veil but doesn’t mind a Kim Kardashian-style nanny getting close to her husband.

What To Watch Out For (Or Not)

Neeli Kothi | Hum TV, Coming soon

The writer of blockbuster romcoms such as Suno Chanda and Chupke Chupke, Saima Akram Chaudhry, returns with a new, family-oriented serial, initially titled Neeli Kothi.

Published in Dawn, ICON, June 15, 2025