‘We Are Lady Parts’: One of TV’s Best Shows Finally Returns After Three Years

It’s been three years since an all-female, all-Muslim band burst onto the TV scene with We Are Lady Parts, a single-camera British sitcom about rockers in their twenties navigating the traditions of both Islam and punk. If that seems like a long gap between TV seasons, just think of what it feels like for a fledgling musical act. While the on-screen time elapsed between seasons appears closer to one year later than three, life’s clock keeps ticking for the central quartet and their dedicated manager (Lucie Shorthouse).

Since cautious, well-behaved Amina (Anjana Vasan) finally, fully committed to the band in the Season 1 finale, Lady Parts has coalesced as a gig-booking, fan-accumulating, repertoire-expanding actual band. But they don’t have a full record or next-level success to show for it. No one feels that more acutely than Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey), the band’s founder and frontwoman. On the cusp of 30, she’s feeling desperate for a mark of accomplishment that won’t sell out her punk-rock ideals. To borrow a phrase from Girls5eva, which debuted on Peacock the same year as Lady Parts, she’s hoping to enter “album mode.”

Anyone jumping into We Are Lady Parts hoping for the gag density of their similarly named, more pop-inclined ex-labelmates might come away disappointed. Lady Parts is many things — swiftly paced, strikingly shot, packed with likable characters—but it’s only occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, often playing more like a dramedy with extra stylistic zip. Yet the real absence felt in this genre hybridization isn’t really the jokes; it’s the plotting, which sometimes gets caught between serialized drama and tidier, more episodic comedy.

Read more at The Daily Beast.