It’s a classic reality television equation: 10 people, one house, eight days. Your first thought might be Big Brother, the Stockholm syndrome endurance test that was once such a success that it keeps getting revived by commercial networks scared to try something new, but this version is on SBS and it has a new twist. All the participants on Muslims Like Us are Australians who identify as belonging to the Islamic faith.
The series, which screened over two consecutive nights at the headline time of 8.30pm, was both an explanation and a means of entrance – it offered those on the screen the chance to discuss, debate and sometimes go dramatic on their place inside, or in some cases outside, their religion. Those watching got an inspired sense of the breadth of the Muslim experience. There was Sunni, Shia, and Sufi adherents, and because this was reality television, there was also the didactic, the dramatic and a very bad dancer.