Since we get CBC on “extended basic”, I was able to see the first episode last night.

I’ll say right now, I haven’t seen a sitcom in years. I mean years. Like, if I were to think of the last sitcom I’ve seen, it’d have to be…MASH? When it was still current? All those sitcoms like Friends (that was a sitcom, right?) and, oh. That’s right, I did see an episode of Seinfeld once, when it was still current, so that might have been about 5 years ago?

Anyway, so let’s put it this way: I don’t have a lot to judge this against. But I thought it was pretty funny. I’m not sure how many cross-cultural jokes they can do – it seems like eventually they’re going to run dry – but I’d be interested to see how long this will go on for.

And I just don’t think most folks have images of “regular” Muslims on TV. You don’t see Muslim worship depicted like it was in this show – a few ordinary folks, doing the usual prayers.

I also spent some time trying to estimate the size of the town. The mayor has a big enough office, the population is big enough to have at least a dozen or so Muslim households – the place can’t be that small. My guess was somewhere in the 10,000 to 50,000 range – a goodly-sized small city, probably relatively large if it really is out in the middle of the prairies.

If nothing else, the actor Zaib Shaikh, who plays the imam, is a hottie.