As if it were a surprise. There were signs, very strong signs . . .
Working on the show was becoming increasingly difficult. The more popular it got, the more hated it became. It continued to break viewership ratings and it had the most expensive price for television advertisement in Egyptian television history. Anyone would have been elated to have this show. But with me it was different.
I always had haters and people who’d prefer to see me dead in a gutter. I get that, but to be so childish as to jam our satellite signal? The opening credits would play and suddenly the signal would be lost. This had never happened on TV before.
We filed a complaint to the Egyptian media authority, which said they would investigate the incident. Of course they never got back to us.
The pro-military shows started to host “experts” who hinted that all the dissidents would “disappear” soon, including my show.
“The people don’t want him anymore,” they would say. By the “people” they meant the regime.
So far we had been following a conservative strategy. We couldn’t ridicule Sissi directly since he was not president yet. We were careful not to even get him onscreen and make fun of what he was saying while he was in his military uniform. He needed to be out of uniform, and above all he needed to be sworn in for the gloves to come off.
We were approaching our first break in weeks, a scheduled and much-needed two-week holiday around Easter, away from a very stressful job. As the break swiftly approached, we had a team meeting to decide what to do next.
Then we got a call. The network asked us to “delay” our return. It seems that they were under a lot of pressure from the authorities. “We need to show goodwill,” they told me. “We want you to come back after the elections are over. We would announce that we did that because we didn’t want to influence the outcome.”
Of course that was bullshit. Everyone knew the outcome of the elections. There was no way anyone could affect them. Sissi was running “virtually” unopposed. And by unopposed I meant that he was running against a ghost of a candidate. One of the candidates in the previous elections had agreed to run against him, perhaps to give some legitimacy to the whole process. Remember, appearances are all that matter (Jesus—it sounds like we are a heartless pageant mom). If Sissi ran alone it wouldn’t look good in front of the global community. Still, the outcome was a joke: Sissi won by 98 percent of the vote. The “challenger” came in third. Yup, in a two-man race the other candidate came in third when the ballots were counted. There were more disqualified ballots than the ones he got. It was a fucking joke.
So now we were back and we wrote an incredible episode. I can say that because you will never see it. Actually, no one will. But in my opinion it was one of the most daring and funniest ones we ever wrote. We were breaking so many taboos that I was sure I would end up in jail for it. This time we didn’t hold back. We got Sissi right there with all the pageantry and empty promises. We were in satire heaven.
Then another phone call came. “Bassem, we are sorry, we have to shut you down.”