It’s official — home-grown comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie has been picked up for a fifth instalment, putting an end to questions about the show’s fate after ratings fell to fewer than 400,000 viewers in the series’ fourth season.
Although CBC opted not to issue a press release about the renewal, production on the series began last week, and an official announcement is expected at the CBC upfronts later this month.
“We were extremely glad, given everything — just the temperature out in the industry in terms of shows and series,” executive producer Mary Darling told TVGuide.ca. “We have so many things we want to address in the series, we felt like if we were done we would be done, but there’s so much more the series can say.”
When Little Mosque wrapped at the end of last season, two of the show’s main characters, Rayyan (Sitara Hewitt) and Amar (Zaib Shaikh), professed their love for one another after years of writers keeping them apart. That profession will become a key plot point in the upcoming season.
“Once love is professed, the whole chaperoning is taken to a new level,” hints Darling. “It’s been a real kick for our writers to not only figure out how to keep characters apart but to keep them from touching each other.”
The fifth season, which will debut the first of 13 episodes sometime in January after a special stand-alone Christmas special in December, features all the original characters from the first season. Carlo Rota, who had to bow out of the second half of last season due to scheduling conflicts, will return for a limited number of episodes, as will Derek McGrath as Reverend Magee in the second half of the season.
“That will probably make our fans’ heads explode; they’ll be so excited about that,” says Darling, who was aware of the initial resistance from fans about bringing Brandon Firla as Reverend Thorne on board last season, but thinks viewers have now warmed up to the character.
“We would never abort Reverend Thorne!” she says. “He got his comeuppance at the end of last season and this year he’s dealing with that, trying to rebuild and find his real legs in Mercy. He’s trying to change but has some ingrained habits that make that hard.”
Joining production on the fifth season of the Leo-winning series are writers Sadiya Durrani, a Punjabi-Muslim woman who interned on the show last year and will pen one-and-a-half episodes this season, as well as writing vets Andrew Carr (Hiccups, Corner Gas) and Anthony Farrell (The Office).
What do you think about a fifth season of Little Mosque? Sound off below or email me, amber@tvguide.ca.
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