The Writer

I'm very happy that the Arab entertainment has found itself in filming, a mixture between Lebanese and Syrian cast. It's very well shot, although there would've been more space to play with the cinematography, but so far so good, i hope we move forward with that.

I have to say there are highly preformed actors and actresses, but I don't feel like they're taking the story seriously. I'm very surprised and really want to question why Mr. Bassel Khayat A.K.A. lead actor Yunis Jibran, (a well known actor) has really preformed differently, when his character was so strong in other roles such as "Al Ekhwa" (The Brothers, an Arabic series) and many others like it. I'm not sure why he preformed his acting in this way, as I have no doubt that he is an amazing actor with years and years of experience and degrees.

I really hope we keep seeing more of new Arab series on Netflix.

Some of these reviews are pretty harsh and kind of unfair. I'm a student of the Arabic language. This series is actually awesome for exposure to Levantine dialect and culture. Give it a chance.

Yes, this entire series may (or may not) be an exact replica of an American or European soap, perhaps even copied line by line as well as shot by shot ...

it's also full of script flaws and plot errors here and there ... actings, although mostly great, do also degrade once a while in some cases ... but the whole work is so finely directed and professionally videographed and above all, the well stated social commentary is so deep yet so plainly conveyed that I have nothing to say but for i am highly impressed!

yes, i already knew Lebanon is a secular country with very charming people and I was also well aware that the movie industry of Lebanon is a well established one with a decades-long history before I started watching ... but still, as the movie went on, I found myself more and more attached to the events and stories of each one of the many characters that all happen to be imperfect human beings yet everyone is quite understandable!

a huge kudos to all people involved in creating such a truly nice job indeed!

I'll keep it simple You can easily watch this series and enjoy it, it's not a bad choice at all, good acting, interesting murder-mystery kind of story and great imagery with an artistic type of direction (cool concept).

But i think the only real problem is that the storyline is slow, i don't know why Arabic series in general always try to hit 30 episodes, it's becoming a tradition.

So this is the only negative thing otherwise it's almost great, no need for harsh reviews, it's unfair.

Just a side note, The director, the writer, the lead male actor and the fictional detective character, are Syrians not Lebanese.

Is it cheesy? Yes! Does it skip some information and you have to mentally fill in the blanks? Yes! Is the main character a spoiled selfish lout? But does he learn and change? Absolutely! Is it different, hysterical and fun? Absolutely! I have to admit, it took a little brain tweaking to get into this. I'm a blond, freckle faced, born and raised Californian. I love Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. So, to hear these characters talk about these famous western writers, was fun and shocking to me. Shocking that they would even know them. The main character, who is 'The Writer', dreams regularly about his main protagonist, Mr. Helmi. In the dream he is always in a train boxcar, and different characters from his book and life are sometimes on the train. Mr. Helmi helps him reason out who the murderer is. This part of the story is brilliant and fun. This show really is hysterically, but as I mentioned, your head has to be open to understanding, otherwise you won't get the jokes because they are presented in a dry humor. I believe this show also offers 'life lessons' about how easily you can lose control. The sisters of the murdered girl continually jump to conclusions that make perfect sense, but are way off. The blogger/journalist seems so clever at first, but then falls down a rabbit hole. I highly recommend this show and didn't regret one bit, the time I spent watching it. One more note, it is interesting that none of the characters ever kiss, even at their engagement party. Evidence that it is not really necessary.