Bleak Ramadan TV season depresses Egyptian viewers
What is traditionally a light-hearted roster of Ramadan entertainment featured heavy themes of death, revenge and tragedy this year.
CAIRO — Those who assume Egyptians spend their Ramadan evenings with light television entertainment may revise their thinking after the 2019 season. Many Egyptian TV series this May feature a protagonist carrying the dead body of a loved one or a shroud-wrapped comrade being lowered into a grave.
This tragic death scene is repeated in three different Ramadan series — "Abu Gabal," "Hadotet Morra" (“A Bitter Story) and "Qamar Hadi" (“Hadi's Moon”) — in more or less the same setup of tragic faces and white shrouds. For seasoned watchers of Egypt’s Ramadan TV series, the scene was a throwback to 2017's "Zel Al-Raees" (“The President’s Shadow”), a tale of political power, corruption and assassination.
The show's most memorable scene was of a former presidential guard — played by Yasser Jalal — carrying the dead bodies of his son and wife. The series had topped that year's must-watch list.
The graveyard scene was repeated last year, this time in "Tayea," a saga of love and revenge in Upper Egypt. The popular series, currently on Netflix, revolves around a doctor who stands firmly against the idea of vengeance and gets tangled up in the business of smuggling antiquities.
