Little Mosque on the Prairie

Awhile back, while we were watching the excellent British comedy Rev., on Hulu, we used to see trailers for a Candian comedy called Little Mosque on the Prairie (or as it's called on Hulu, simply Little Mosque). I watched a couple episodes back then, and then some other show came up for us to binge watch, and I forgot about it. Recently I started watching it again, and it's quite funny, in a quaint, Canadian sort of way. The premise is the story of a mosque that rents space at a little Anglican church in a small town on the prairie of Saskatchewan. Of course, there are little culture clashes, and a fair amount of hilarity. The great strength of the show, to my way of thinking, is of the various characters: the progressive young imam, the equally progressive (but somewhat more cynical) Anglican priest, the traditionalist African immigrant, the educated ultra-conservative Muslim who is always shouting at people, the opportunistic Muslim businessman with the former-Anglican wife (who isn't really very good at the whole Islam thing), and several other enjoyable (if somewhat stereotypical) characters.

The writing is pretty good, the situations are humorous, and the nice thing is, in general, even when they disagree, all these different people get along. In this crazy time in which we live, especially when it comes to friction between various cultures, it's nice to see a comedy that posits the idea, however idealistic it may seem, that things wouldn't be so bad if we could just come to grips with the idea that we're all pretty much the same. ​ I also think the fact that it's set in Canada, instead of the United States, makes it a bit easier to digest, for some reason. (If it were in the US, I feel like it might hit a little to close to home, literally.) Anyway, I'm enjoying it, and I'm almost to the end of the first season (out of six).