Shazia Ahmad Archives – The Missing Slate

Arts & Culture, The Critics, The Devil's in the Remote

The Lesser Time Travellers

By Shazia Ahmad

The Devil’s in the Remote returns with an all-new avatar, as Shazia wonders why Doctor Who’s companions are rarely developed as characters rather than plot devices.

Arts & Culture, The Critics, The Devil's in the Remote

A Very Subjective “Best of 2013” List

By Shazia Ahmad

Kicking off our series of year-end roundups, Shazia highlights the less lauded triumphs of TV in 2013.

Arts & Culture, The Devil's in the Remote

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

By Shazia Ahmad

Can Glee manage a poignant, sensitive tribute to its fallen cast member? Shazia Ahmad muses on how other shows have dealt with actor mortality.

Arts & Culture, The Critics, The Devil's in the Remote

Don’t Trust the Happy Endings at ABC

By Shazia Ahmad

Shazia Ahmad rages against TV’s cancelation travesties in the second of her two-part tirade…

Arts & Culture, The Critics, The Devil's in the Remote

Television Programming Cancellation Travesties

By Shazia Ahmad

For me, when I enter a meditative state, I’m reliving the best scenes on television from the previous week; be it the Red Coat…

The Devil's in the Remote

Pilots: What’s hot and what really isn’t

By Maryam Piracha, Shazia Ahmad

Awards Season As children of the 90s, it’s funny how uncomfortable we are with the idea of competition and people losing (that whole “everybody’s…

The Devil's in the Remote

Pretty Little Liars: BetrAyer

By Shazia Ahmad

The Devil’s in the Remote reviews “Pretty Little Liars”

The Devil's in the Remote

Suits: I’m Too Busy Being Awesome

By Shazia Ahmad

Oh Suits, you teased us so with the possibility of an adversary worthy of Jessica and Harvey, someone with a justifiable motive and the…

The Devil's in the Remote

Bunheads: O Captain, My Captain

By Shazia Ahmad

If Bunheads had not been renewed, it’s final episode would’ve been a depressing tone to end on. For a light-hearted show about a city-girl…

The Devil's in the Remote

Please Wait, I Miss My TV (23rd – 29th July)

By Shazia Ahmad

Awkward Nothing forces the feelings issue more than Valentine’s Day. Matty is finally moving on, or at least working at moving on. Jake’s at…

In the Magazine

A Word from the Editor

Don’t cry like a girl. Be a (wo)man.

Why holding up the women in our lives can help build a nation, in place of tearing it down.

Literature

This House is an African House

"This house is an African house./ This your body is an African woman’s body..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

Shoots

"Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

"She presses her toes together. I will never marry, she says. Jamais dans cette vie! Where can I find a man like you?" By...

In the Issue

Property of a Sorceress

"She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

Literature

What Took Us to War

"What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us." By...

Literature

Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

"sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

Literature

Quarter to War

"The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Literature

Transgendered

"Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

"The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

"Every day—any day—any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be... We’d part like hair, pushing into the...

Fiction

Between Two Worlds

"Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest...."...

Essays

Talking Gender

"In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

"Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years." Gimel Samera looks...

Essays

Not Just A Phase

"...in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

"The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police". Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

"The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldn’t be sure yet..." By Hawa Jande Golakai.