Saaya (season 1)
# Saaya (season 1)

Saaya is a 2018 Pakistani horror drama television series directed by Syed Muhammad Khurram, produced by Babar Javed and written by Wajeeha Sahar. The drama stars Maham Amir, Sohail Sameer and Kiran Tabeer in lead roles, and premiered on Geo Entertainment. The theme of the series is karma.

In 2021, serial was released on the network's sister channel Geo Kahani. Its second season titled "Saaya 2" premiered on 6 May 2022, on Geo Entertainment. The second season stars Mashal Khan, Momina Iqbal and Danial Afzal Khan.

## Plot

The drama revolves around a girl named Sauleha who lives with her husband Rashid and his family. Sauleha is pressured by her mother-in-law to give birth to a son or she will no longer have place in the house. Sauleha has two daughters and falls pregnant with a boy who is exchanged with a girl by a nurse Qayoom who is desperate for a son. The mother-in-law is forced to keep Sauleha in the house by Rashid but the mother does not give up and so her and her niece decide do black magic on her making Sauleha have a mental illness and then make a plan to kill Sauleha. They push her off the roof explaining it was her committing suicide. Rashid is forced to get married to Saba but he does not accept her as his wife but Saba does not like it. Sauleha starts to haunt the people in the house and once everyone knows about the supernatural presence they stay aware but Sauleha disturbs Saba and Rashid thinks that Saba has an illness. Sauleha continues to haunt the people in the house protecting her daughters and soon reaches out to Qayoom and decides to irritate her.

## Series overview

| Season | Season | No. of episodes | Originally broadcast (Pakistan) | Originally broadcast (Pakistan) |
| - | - | - | - | - |
| Season | Season | No. of episodes | First episode | Last episode |
| | 1 | 70 | 21 March 2018 (2018-03-21) | 21 November 2018 (2018-11-21) |
| | 2 | 44 | 6 May 2022 (2022-05-06) | 18 June 2022 (2022-06-18) |

## Cast

### Main cast

* Maham Amir as Sauleha
* Sohail Sameer as Rashid
* Kiran Tabeir as Saba
* Faizan Shaikh as Sajid
* Mizna Waqas as Raheela
* Ghana Ali as Maheen

### Recurring cast

* Sumbul Shahid as Ateeqa; Rashid, Sajid and Shela's mother
* Hajra Khan as Shela; sister of Rashid and Sajid
* Saleem Iqbal as Hamid; Rashid, Sajid and Shela's father
* Saleem Mairaj as Shams; a spiritual scholar
* Falaq Naz as Rafiqa; Saba's mother
* Usman Patel as Ishaq; Saba's brother and Maheen's husband
* Sana Pervaiz as Ghana; Saba's friend and Sajid's wife
* Sana Humayun as Dr.Areesha
* Wahaj Ahmed as Qayuum; Raheela's husband
* Zulfikar Ali as Waseem; Shela's husband
* Salma Qadir as Rifat; Shela's mother in law
* Vasia Fatima

### Child cast

* Khushi Maheen as Pinky(Rashid/Sauleha’ 2nd daughter
* Bakhtawar Rasheed as Guriya(Rashid/Sauleha’s 1st daughter)
* Anabia as Shafaq (Rashid/Sauleha’s 3rd daughter but actually this is Qayum/Raheela’s daughter
* Sameer as Ahsan (Shela/Waseem’s son)
* Sania Zehra as Laraib – (Qayum/Raheela’s 1st daughter)
* Hoorain as Manahil (Qayum/Raheela’s 2nd daughter)
* Alizay as Sidra (Qayum/Raheela’s 3rd daughter)
* Akbar as Akbar (Qayum/Raheela’s 4th son who is actually Rashid/Sauleha’s son who the nurse swapped with their daughter)

## Production

In September 2017, Syed Mohammad Khurram started shooting officially for his horror series "Jinn" which changed to "Saaya" afterwards. Faysal Manzoor headed the project whereas Wajiha Sehar written the script for the series. Shooting for the series started in September 2017 and it had to be launched in January 2018 but due to nikah of two stars of the series Maham Amir and Faizan Shaikh, shooting and editing was interrupted. Later it was launched in March 2018.

It was slated to go off air after 55 episodes but due to positive reviews and feedbacks, it was extended with new storyline which was produced by Erfan Ghanchi of Blue Eye Entertainment who previously produced Naagin. Lollywood actress Ghana Ali joined the cast on extension. The serial was concluded on 21 November 2018 with a two hour long episode.

## Release

The series was announced to premiere on 7 March 2018 but was delayed due to editing issues and premiered on 21 March on Wednesday at 9:00 pm. It airs thrice a week with the duration of one hour. The drama was previously titled as ‘Jin’ but changed afterward. During Ramadan, the channel reduced its running time to half an hour from 9:15 pm to 9:50 pm. From 20 June it returned to Wednesday to Friday at 9:00 pm with one-hour episodes, but after extension the show aired on Wednesday 9:00 pm due to delay in shooting issues. The series was among the top horror shows of 2018.

## Sequel

In December 2021, it was revealed that season 2 of Saaya is in production starring Wajiha Khan Durrani, Mizna Waqas, Inaya Khan, Naveed Raza, Zainab Qayyum as initial cast members of the show. Later, Momina Iqbal, Mashal Khan were revealed as female leads. Sohail Sameer, Maham Aamir and Saleem Mairaj reprise their roles from the first season. It was released on 6 May 2022 on Geo Entertainment.

