Mania 2024 series: House of Gods, Succession to the mosque
The story of a progressive imam and the power issues that plague his family. A series in international competition not as successful as she would like.
A family, a patriarch, a lot of power, infighting and kids fighting for scraps. Does that remind you of something ? It's not even us who are delusional: the creators ofHouse of Gods themselves admit to having thought of their series as “Succession in a mosque “. The story takes place in the suburbs of Sydney, in the heart of the local Muslim community. Sheikh Mohammed (Kamel El Basha) is appointed imam of The Messengers mosque, where his progressive positions are very frowned upon by some faithful. He pushes to adapt Islam to modern life, which is not at all the view of his conservative rival, Sheikh Shaaker (Simon Elrahi). And Mohammed's ambitious children hope to do well in the game (Maia Abbas and Osamah Sami, the co-creator of the series)…
Power, politics and faith: potentially explosive cocktail and quite over-exciting concept, unfortunately under-treated in the first two episodes that we were able to see. House of Gods pays very dearly in comparison with Succession : not so much in the lack of ambition (besides, visually, it is regularly superb), more in the inability to create tension through conflicts. Everything seems a little artificial in human relationships, the vision of religion and what it is to be Muslim in 2024. Lots of clichés too (the conservatives are very crudely written), and preachy-preaching which destroys all nuance. Slightly boring prestige TV that has a hard time keeping its promises.
The first two episodes of House of Gods are available for 48 hours on the Séries Mania website.
