Shaandaar brings a different kind of story to Pakistani television
Pakistani television dramas tend to follow familiar patterns. Family feuds, romantic misunderstandings, domestic conflicts. Shaandaar, the new crime thriller airing on Express Entertainment, has made a deliberate choice to go somewhere different, and the early response suggests audiences are ready for exactly that.
The 16-episode drama, directed by Wajahat Rauf, draws inspiration from several real-life roadside killing cases that have sparked public debate and outrage in Pakistan. It is not a dramatisation of any single incident. Instead, the story brings together elements from different cases involving violence, privilege and the kind of power that can sometimes make consequences disappear. The question it keeps returning to is one that many Pakistanis have asked in real life: what happens when the powerful believe they are beyond accountability?
For Ahsan Afzal Khan, who plays the central character Salar, the project offered something rare. “A script picked by Mr Wajahat Rauf already gives you the impression that something different is coming,” he told The Express Tribune. He described the opportunity to work in this genre as one of the main reasons he signed on. “There are very few such stories. We were getting a chance to do something different, a crime thriller genre.”
Salar is not easy to like. He is privileged, arrogant and narcissistic. He looks down on others and misuses his influence. But Khan was careful to distinguish between understanding a character and excusing one. “I hope people relate to the human side of Salar, but not to his entire personality,” he said. He also pushed back on the idea that characters can be neatly sorted into good and bad. “No negative character is a bad person, and no positive character is a good person. We are all layered somewhere.”
His explanation for how someone becomes Salar is rooted in how they were raised and what they absorbed along the way. “Did we face bullying? What did we face? All of that is incorporated into your mind. You are reacting as a defence mechanism.” Beneath the arrogance, there is a human being shaped by something. But those origins do not erase the damage.
The drama is designed to move quickly. Khan described it as “fast-paced, gritty and dark,” but said the tone is not relentlessly heavy. “There is a light mood too, then slowly it gets darker and darker. There are social messages and a lot of things.” He said he watches the episodes with his family and finds himself wanting to see the next one. “It keeps you interested. It is not dragged.”
That pace appears to be connecting with a younger audience. “Teenagers and Gen Z are enjoying this drama a lot,” Khan said. He also noted that viewers who usually prefer international content have expressed interest in the series, which says something about how far Shaandaar’s tone and subject matter depart from what Pakistani television typically offers.
The ensemble cast includes Shamoon Abbasi, Shahzad Sheikh, Areeka Haq, Ali Dayan, Laila Wasti and Ahsan Afzal Khan. Together they inhabit a world where privilege and power create consequences that ordinary people cannot escape, and where the same actions carry very different costs depending on who commits them. It is a world many Pakistani viewers will recognise without needing it explained.
