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19 March 2024

Why viewers out of love with 'Bab El Hara' TV series

Published
By Nadim Kawach

When Syrian TV series Bab El Hara was launched on most Arab televisions a few years ago, it was rated as one of the greatest and most popular TV dramatic works in the region. But the series seems to have lost its momentum and is no longer popular.

Part 6 of the series is being shown on some Arab TV channels during the fasting month of Ramadan but most viewers who had waited eagerly for this part have expressed frustration.

One prominent Arab TV presenter went further by saying he felt sick after watching a small part of the series this Ramadan.

“I don’t know why I felt sick when I watched a little part of Bab El Hara. I am really disgusted by the characters in this series and their plastic moustaches,” said Faisal Al Qassimi, a well known presenter in the Qatari satellite TV new channel Al Jazeera.

Part 6 of Bab El Hara (Neighborhood Gate) was launched after a four-year break and followed public calls on its maker Bassam Al Mulla to screen a sixth part.

Bab El Hara has been broadcast annually during Ramadan over the past years and has been rated as one of the most popular Arab TV series.

The series chronicles the daily happenings and family dramas in an old neighborhood in the Syrian capital Damascus in the inter-war period under French rule last century when the population yearned for independence.

The first installment of the series, comprising 31 episodes, was aired during Ramadan in 2006 and it enjoyed broad viewership throughout the region, including Syria and nearby countries, the Gulf, Iraq and the Maghreb region.

The second part was highly anticipated, receiving even wider acclaim in Ramadan of 2007. A third installment was aired in Ramadan of 2008 and it focused on the struggle against the French occupation and the post-marriage lives of the children of Abu Issam, the local doctor and barber.

The fourth and fifth series focused on the struggle against the French. Part five was directed by Bassam’s brother Mumen Al Mulla.

Like many of the most recent popular Arabic series, Bab El Hara is a Syrian production, financed by the Gulf satellite channels.

It reflects a new trend representing the shift of Arabic media dominance away from the Egyptians to the Syrians. As funding has become available from Gulf TV stations, the Syrians have seen an exponential rise to dominance in the field Arab audiovisual and cinematic production over the past few years.

Part 6 was directed by Azzam Fouq Al Ada under the supervision of Bassam Al Mulla, who has said recently that most of the scenes were shot in Dubai and other places after its popular studios in Damascus were destroyed by the war.

Part 6 features the return of the main character Abu Issam who was presumed killed by French troops. But it emerged that he was in prison and was released after falling ill.

Abu Issam (Syrian star Abbas Al Nouri) was absent from part 4 and 5 following a dispute with the director, who was reported to have forced changes in the plot to push for the exit of Al Nouri from the series.

Unlike the previous parts, this installment lacks references to the struggle in Palestine and social habits in old Damascus. Instead it focuses on the return of Abu Issam and his anticipated marriage to a pretty urban nurse who looked after him when he was in hospital after his release from French detention.

According to news leaked by some Bab El Hara actors, the nurse seduced Abu Issam to marry her as she turns out to be a French spy. The marriage naturally triggers heated argument with Abu Issam’s wife Sabah Al Jazaery but it is still not known how it ends.

“I used to watch every episode in this series…I loved it but not any more…I watched the first two episodes of part 6 and found that it is really boring,” said Jassim Al Hariri, a Syrian mobile phone dealer in Abu Dhabi.

“It lacks the patriotism that dominated previous parts and we now miss scenes dealing with simple social habits, which made this work great.”

Hariri and other viewers said they detected some factual errors in part 6 of Bab El Hara and wondered how the director missed them.

One error is that Issam, Abu Issam’s eldest son, had a newborn girl in part 5 and she grew up to nearly 6 years old in part 6. At the same time, the wife of Issam’s brother Mutazz was pregnant in part 5 and was shown to be still pregnant in part 6.

“This means Mutazz’s wife was pregnant for nearly six years.Furthermore, Issam’s sister was pregnant in part 5 but she appears not pregnant in part 6. There are many other mistakes, including that the neighborhood in part 6 does not look the same as that in previous parts,” said Mohammed Safadi, another Syrian in Abu Dhabi.

In other parts of the Arab world, viewers were equally frustrated by part 6 and some of them accused the series’ makers of purely aiming at making profits.

“Previous episodes taught us valuable lessons in old social traditions and nobility of the people in that era…part 6 lacks all this and is clearly intended to make money,”  Yara Ahmed, a Palestinian in the West Bank, said on her Twitter page.

“Part 6 is quite different and a trifle work,” said Imad Al Sayeh, another Palestinian. “It contains serious mistakes and key characters have disappeared as they have either died in real life or left Bab El Hara. This part is far from logic.”

Al Sayeh was referring to the death this year of Syrian stars Hassan Dakkak (Abu Bashir the baker), Wafeeq Al Zaeem (Abu Hatem) and Salim Kallas (Abu Khater).

Saeed Abu Mualla, a Palestinian newspaper critic, said part 6 of Bab El Hara was of lower level because of “the ongoing conflict in Syria, the change of the series’ director, the departure of some key characters because of death, and the shooting of the scenes in different places including Dubai and Beirut.”