I can see the MBC network executives pulling their hair now, but no one can blame MBC, no one could have predicted this kind of chaos. Fight after fight year after year and it never ends, an actor/actress is leaving or being removed, some even being offered big bucks to move to other series !!! The fighting even reached between fans who are now in two or more teams, those who blame the director who is controlling everything now as a producer and those who accuse the actors to be troublemakers for asking more money, Yes this is the level it reached to?!
Bab El 7ara is the series that was reminding us of the beautiful old simpler times, pressing on going back to traditional values, good manners and bravery in a society that is so polluted in our current days. How can I believe the actors in their roles any more now after seeing all what is happening in behind the scenes??
Yet MBC will still be profiting hugely from “Bab Al Hara 4” this year and the 5th season next year. I believe even if MBC just show a black screen with the words “Bab El 7ara” written in Arabic on it will be enough to catch millions of gazing glued eyes.
The first two parts of “Bab El 7ara” were too good that anything coming after that would find a gigantic audience, we all know if “Bab El 7ara 3” was shown first no one would care to follow it. It is being speculated that this season is well written and will avoid amateur mistakes that happened in the third season. I guess we can only wait and see.
And here is the “Making of” segment in the MBC Morning Show:
Again the man who wants offer the truth to the people is fought in every way possible. Leaving Dubai TV after an amazing 4 year run, where as he says he was never censored, which in my opinion is a very brave thing from Dubai TV. But then he had to leave, and after months of speculation we see him announcing on DREAM TV in the talk show “Al3ashera Masa’an” with Mona Elshazly that he is heading to London to continue producing “Qalam Rasas” for Al-Libiyah channel.
No one was enthusiastic about Al-Libiyah, yet the people wanted to listen to Hamdi Qandeel in any possible way, even if it was audio files being downloaded via the internet. But the show did start on Al-Libiyah and although there was always technical problems with the sound and color, but people watched, a huge number of audience the new born channel would never ever have dreamed of.
But problems keep following Hamdi, for unusual reasons the General Manager of Al-Libiyah channel was jailed for couple of days for reasons related to Hezbollah (don’t ask me am as clueless as you are), and since that day “Qalam Rasas” never aired. Only five episodes were aired since the comeback in March. We later knew that Al-Libiyah channel which was a private channel, was nationalized by the president of Libya Muammar Al-Qathafi.
And here the same Mona Elshazly announcing this on her show “Al3ashera Masa’an” “10 O’clock”:
Now I have been hearing that a deal is in the making between him and Al-Manar channel, funny enough, that is the TV channel of Hezbollah. Will the deal work out? Will it get cancelled few weeks later? Who knows? we shall wait and watch.
Here is the last episode of Qalam Rasas on Al-Libiyah for those who missed it:
During the past four years and while watching each and every episode of Qalam Rasas I always had a feeling it will get canceled the next day. Mr. Hamdi Qandeel was very brave and sometimes I believe he was too brave, he would amazingly mirror the thoughts of millions of Arabs every week, and call things as he see it.
I think the best TV show on Dubai TV since many years and for years to come is Qalam Rasas, this show was the only thing that made people forgive the shortcomings of the Arabic media, it was a great example of free speech, whenever the Arab media would get attacked for being censored to the max, Qalam Rasas was the show that gave hope to the people that having a show that reflects their views is possible even while the governments are busy creating new rules to further cripple the media.
Lets all get ready to watch Star Academy, The manager, X Factor, Super Star, Mission Fashion, Hizi Ya Nawaem, Taratata. Those shows will never get canceled whatever happens in them, as long as it makes us occupied and our time well wasted. Or maybe we can watch some Turkish drama series, Nour and Sanawat Al Daya’a were not enough apparently now each and every Arab TV station is showing a new Turkish series, tears guaranteed. And if all that does not give you the satisfaction you are longing for, there is always Rotana and Melody and Mazzika channels.
With all this high quality clean intelligent content on our TV stations who needs Qalam Rasas? We do not need to be reminded, we do not need to get informed, we have to stay in a coma.
Hamdi Qandeel always felt that this day might come, In April 2007 he mentioned that he might resign soon, but back then we assumed this was just part of his script and that he is just joking. I realized that since that moment when he talked about resigning his episodes became even more brave and outspoken and he was not afraid at all to name names, its as if he was taking full advantage of the time he has on air.
All what I can say is I wish Mr. Hamdi Qandeel good luck in his next project and that I wish he does not resign and I wish to watch him on another channel, a TV channel which would give him the space he deserves. Friday nights just wont be the same anymore.
At first I would like to thank all those who emailed and asked what’s wrong, and why ibrahimo.com lately is not as usual. Well I had couple of issues before and during the holy month of Ramadan, and then after Ramadan by around ten days my Toshiba Qosmio G30 stopped working properly, the screen would melt (as seen in the image) just after few minutes from booting. Later I find out it was the Nvidia video card which is embedded on the motherboard. After calling Toshiba (Al-Futaim) here in Dubai I gave them my notebook’s model number and an explanation on what was happening, and they quickly and over phone told me what was the problem, they told me they needed around a week to order the card from Germany!!
That was not the funny part though, I could not stop laughing when I was told that if I had warranty for one year it would be expired by now and I will need to pay something between 3500 to 4500 thousand dirhams!!!!! The notebook itself cost me something like 6500 thousand dirhams. So later I found that I was covered til 2010 and the repair will be done for free.
I was not posting on the blog as normal during the past 3 months, this blog is still considered semi-personal, I will post my views and opinions on Technology, Sports, Politics and TV. New improvements will be implemented soon. So stay tuned…
I thought, like others, that Bab El 7ara Part 3 or Season 3 like some likes to call it, is the last one and the door will get closed. But those behind the series finds a great opportunity especially that the viewership of the third season did not decline, so now they have decided to produce two new seasons to be aired in 2009 and 2010. What does the director Bassam Al Mulla wants exactly, he wants us to see the grand grand sons of the series characters?
Bab El 7ara is getting more than it deserves, those who used to say that they wont watch the 3rd part because of 3abbas El Noori are actually watching, they want to know what happens to the other characters. If this goes on we could end up seeing Bab El7ara 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and 10, Until we reach to the current time. How long will they stretch this, I don’t blame them they found the chicken which will lay golden eggs.
Update:I will try my best to show Bab El7ara here.. I had couple of problems the past 5 days, will be blogging soon. MBC changed the Schedule to 11:00pm Dubai time. thats 7:00pm GMT. More to come soon.
Everybody is waiting for Bab El 7ara 3, after two successful seasons in Ramadan 2006 and 2007 MBC saw an opportunity and jumped on it. They quickly struck a deal with the producer and director of the Syrian TV drama series and even before airing the last few episodes they announced Bab El7ara 3, and quickly created promos featuring the two stars of the series. But later everybody started loosing faith in the success of the 3rd season after it was officially announced on AlArabiya channel that one of those two stars "Abbas El Noori" was not going to be in the 3rd season and his character will die on the first minute of the first episode. Fans of the show got mad and bombarded all Arabic forums showing their anger on the decision which is believed to be taken by the director although he says it was the writer’s decision.
By the end of July 2008 new teasers of Bab El 7ara started showing on MBC and by mid August longer promos aired. Those fans who did not believe the news that "Abu Essam" the character of "Abbas Elnoori" got a clear confirmation that his character is dead.
Here are ALL Promo’s that aired on MBC starting from the oldest ad to the latest one:
If you are a politics junkie like me or just a regular follower of news you will always try to find easier ways to access news networks. I watch a variety of channels and on different times, I watch CNN, Aljazeera English, Aljazeera Arabic, BBC World, France 24, MSNBC, Sky News, Alarabiya, and only for laughs I watch FOX News. For a while I used to use P2P programs such as TVU Networks, SOPCast, PPLIVE, PPMate and PPStream to watch various of news channels. Lately I am using LiveStation to watch some News channels, LiveStation provide high quality streaming of a number of news channels and radio news channels too.
For the time being LiveStation provides the following channels:
Some channels might not be available in your location, for example in my location “UAE” the “iTELE” channel is not available, but I guess most of them would be available. The streaming is fast and in great high quality and easy to switch between channels.
LiveStation also allows users to add channels in the website by adding the streaming URL of the channel. You also can add “user added” channels to your LiveStation channels list. Until writing this post 579 channels were added by users, you will find some of those really useful but some might not be in a good video quality like the channels officially provided by LiveStation.
Redlasso which allowed bloggers to search and clip footage aired from the major American networks like NBC, FOX, CBS and Cable Channels such as MSNBC, Comedy Central. so basically if I wanted to show a clip of a part of an episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, I can just go to Redlasso search by date and channel and keyword obviously and then edit the footage and create a clip where I can embed on my blog.
While most of the channels now do have most of their shows videos online, and embedable on any blog but its not editable, Redlasso gave control for you to crop the segment you want from any show. NBC and FOX have filed a lawsuit against Redlasso on the 23rd of July 2008, and on the 25th of July 2008 Redlasso suspended their service. You can read their Press Release for full details. Although they still say they will try to come to an agreement with the networks, I really don’t see that happening.
The thing that really confused me and I would be thankful to anyone out there who can explain this for me, they say that the clips created by paying customers will still be working fine, so isn’t that adding more risk on Redlasso showing that they are profiting from others copyrighted materials? I donno but does this have any other meaning?! please help and enlighten me.
I got my beta account on Redlasso back on March 2008, and only started using it for my blog on July 2008, and only for two of my posts, why? I HAD A FEELING THIS WILL HAPPEN
An amazing advertisement that is really so good that it makes you want to help in any way you can. It is to spread awareness on the issue of water problems in poor countries, as the ad said 1.1 BILLION which is the same as the population of North America and Europe wash with, bath in and drink dirty water EVERY DAY!! Those who want to help can get the full info from WorldVision.org .
You can watch an interesting 3 minute documentary on the this matter from the same website.
To those who do not know, Charlie Black who is John McCain’s chief advisor had said earlier that a terrorist attack on USA would create a big advantage for McCain. Richard Clarke appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann and said that Charlie Black’s comments are “politics of fear” and advised McCain to fire him immediately “Charlie Black ought to be gone tomorrow morning.”
Again the man who wants offer the truth to the people is fought in every way possible. Leaving Dubai TV after an amazing 4 year run, where as he says he was never censored, which in my opinion is a very brave thing from Dubai TV. But then he had to leave, and after months of speculation we see him announcing on DREAM TV in the talk show “Al3ashera Masa’an” with Mona Elshazly that he is heading to London to continue producing “Qalam Rasas” for Al-Libiyah channel.
