Monday, September 20, 2010

Turkish Television & A Blog Hop

Aşk-ı Memnu (TV series)Image via WikipediaThe theme is TV over at Alex Cavanaugh's Blogfest so I thought I'd multitask and entertain today with the Turkish romantic drama Aşk-ı Memnu (Forbidden Love). 

Following in the footsteps of the Cinderalla story Gümüş/ Noor,  Aşk-ı Memnu is insanely popular outside of Turkey. The soap opera has its own Youtube channel, in case you miss an episode.  There are versions with English subtitles and the series, also dubbed into Arabic, is aired all over the Middle East. Need a French version? How about Romanian? Got it.

No one can get enough and I have a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with the male lead of both of the shows, Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ.

Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ
The root of Aşk-ı Memnu is a bitter love triangle. Behlul  is the (very handsome) young man who falls in love with Bihter, who unfortunately is already married to his uncle. Then Behlul gets engaged to Bihter's step-daughter, Nihal. Bihter doesn't want to let him go. The affair continues with the danger of discovery lurking around every corner. Nihal and the uncle are oblivious, of course. The story is adapted from an Ottoman novel by Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil.

This is the episode where Behlul gets engaged to Nihal, with English subtitles.  If you haven't read my post on Rules of Engagement, you might want to that too.

So...who else is following Kıvanç now? I call dibs on him for one of my characters (betas take a guess)!


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19 comments:

Hart Johnson said...

Oh, now that looks very spicy! (And he is very handsome)--I love your take on this... giving us an intro to a Turkish soap.

Carolyn Abiad said...

You know me - always talking Turkey :D

I don't really watch much TV, so I don't have a top 10 to post. Shaun the Sheep (claymation) doesn't count, I'm guessing. I do lots of streaming Netflix these days. Closure every time.

Ellie Garratt said...

I think you are right with your sneaky suspicion, the lead looks rather hot!

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Thanks for filling us in on a show many of never get to see!

Karen M. Peterson said...

Sounds like an intriguing show!

I sometimes forget they have original programming in other countries. Stuck up American, I guess!

Carolyn Abiad said...

@ Karen...the rest of the world doesn't really expect us to follow their shows. They're busy following ours ;)

@ Alex...thanks. Thought I'd try something a little different.

@Ellie and Hart...hands off the merchandise! LOL :)

Unknown said...

Wow, he is cute. It seems like a complicated situation. I was wondering why the all lived in the same house but then I found out they were family.

CD

Carolyn Abiad said...

@ Clarissa...Ottomans loved their extended family! lol :D

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

Wonderful of you to take part and showing us what we are missing in your country,
Thank you.
Yvonne.

Carolyn Abiad said...

@ Yvonne. You're most welcome. I'm from the US actually, but I lived in Turkey and my MS is set there. That's why I blog about the East.

Jules said...

I had not seen that show and I agree with Clarissa, he's cute. Thanks for sharing.

I'd also like to thank you following my blog and will more than happy to return the favor. :D
Jules @ Trying To Get Over The Rainbow

Lynda R Young as Elle Cardy said...

Your list is like a tease of shows I'll probably never get to see :) That guy looks so hot!

Jemi Fraser said...

Seems like it's well worth a look! :)

Kelly Polark said...

Thanks for the glimpse into a Turkish soap opera!
And he is one good looking man!

Cruella Collett said...

It's funny how soaps seem to be a universal thing. My friends and I used to do this thing with some Latin-American soap we watched - none of us spoke Spanish, but if we turned off the sound, we could make our own dialog that sounded just as accurate. very funny.

(I love Shaun the Sheep too - it's hilarious!)

DEZMOND said...

this Turkish soap is a huge hit in my neighboring Bosnia too :) while here in Serbia another Turkish soap is currently popular, the one about some girl named Scheherazade :)

Kelley said...

This sounds like a very interesting show :)

Ella said...

He is gorgeous; This show does look good!

Carolyn Abiad said...

@ Dezmond - The show with scherezade is called Binbir Gece - or 1001 Nights and features an indecent proposal. It is also a Kanal D program.

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