Count Abdulla

As a fan of the vampire genre, I have seen just about every interpretation, but by far this was one of the best. As the recent entries of Interview with a Vampire, What We Do In the Shadows and Reginald The Vampire, this show adds another viewpoint that we normally don't see. As this series masterfully blends the culture clash trope with the Vampire comedy, as we find a female Vampire with a East Indian fetish who just so happens to bite a down on his luck Indian doctor, which is where the series gives a nod of the hat to Scrubs. As this concurrently running tropes altogether should not work but this one does. As the delving into the world of Muslim families will remind viewers of Bend It Like Beckham and Ramy but recently having seen Polite Society, this absolutely harkens to many of that brilliant movie's themes. I can only tell the viewer to give it a chance as it will surprise you just how funny and insightful it is while carving out its own niche in the vampire genre.

A muslim vampire doctor...thats as funny as it gets.

There are some "jokes" but they are from the 70s. All been done to death many many times before and werent funny the first time around either.

Some social issues do get raised too, but as subtly as a sledghammer, which I expected.

Its a 1 joke tv show because the writer is not a comedy writer. Hes a Cambridge history graduate. Probably a nice guy but not a comedy writer. I guess he got an opportunity and took it, fair enough. But it didnt work this time.

People are scoring it 10 for reasons known only to themselves. 10 means perfection!! Check the shows below and then ask how people scored this a 10???

Curb you enthusiasm 8.8.

Friday night dinner 8.1 Everybody hates Chris 7.5 Fresh prince 7.9 Office UK 8.5 Chappelle show 8.8 Fawlty Towers 8.8 Key & Peele 8.3.

League of Gentlemen 8.4 Inbetweeners 8.4.

Watch 1 episode of Count abdullah and then look at this list and ask yourself how you would score it compared to those shows.

I watched the entire series before reviewing just to make sure I wasn't missing something good but in the end all I did was waste my time. No good storyline, no real comedy, no big plot twists, and on top of it all it was grossly bigoted and insulting. Just imagine how it would have been received if a bunch of white characters had made so many slurs about brown people, thrown someone out of a party for dressing as a native or stereotyping people even half as much as they constantly did in this series. Not only would it not made it to production, a lot of writers would be fired and probably prevented from ever working again. But apparently in some circles it's okay to trash people as long as they are in the right group. It might have made some people laugh but it won't work in the long run.

A British/Pakistani GP is bitten by a vampire and hilarity unfortunately doesn't ensue. On the positive side its nice to see a comedy exploring and set in the British/Pakistani community which is much under-represented on our screens.

I'm just not sure this will work for a broadstream ITV audience as its been written in a very niche vein. Its not a patch on C4's 'We are lady parts' - Nida Manzoor's anarchic and irreverent music comedy about a Muslim female punk band, which deservedy won her a Bafta last year.

The script could have been better with more laughs and often seemed more concerned with virtue signalling than being funny.

Might have found a bigger audience on C4 or BBC3 as its main appeal will be to a much younger audience than ITV gets.

Nothing special about the production values and no stand outs in the cast, overall a disappointment - hard to see being re-commissioned.

I'm not sure I have the words to describe just how bad this show is. It misses all its targets. As a comedy it fails to produce a single even remotely amusing moment. As a reflection on the humorous side of the Muslim community it is cringingly embarrassing. It's certainly no "We Are Lady Parts". As a revision of the vampire genre it's all over the place. If Nina Wadia hadn't been in the cast (did she just never read the rest of the script?) I would probably have avoided this whole debacle. Instead I'm just embarrassed for everyone concerned. If this is meant to prove, as advertised, that "comedy is back" on ITV then this is comedy that we could well do without.