Leyla ile Mecnun… A name poems, stories and novels have been written about — but a TV series like this was something else. While it was on air I genuinely loved it. I didn’t catch the first season; I jumped in around the time the second Leyla arrived, and mostly followed it online. As far as I remember 103 episodes aired, and after the show ended TRT also aired episode 104 — they actually slipped it in while Star TV was running Bende Özledim.
The show was genuinely peculiar. While watching you’d be laughing, getting wistful, and trying to chew on its sharp, off-beat jokes all at once. Honestly, those jokes are what pull me toward this kind of production. The same is true of Kardeş Payı, which I’m also watching. The actors in Leyla ile Mecnun really did their job; I have no idea what they’re like in real life, but on screen they made me laugh.
The show was eventually pulled because of low ratings. That’s fair, actually — even though I watched the whole series, the number of episodes I caught while sitting in front of a TV doesn’t even cross the fingers of one hand. Maybe 2–3 episodes, tops. I don’t really watch TV, so it’s always like this. Still, it was a good show. Compared to most Turkish series, it could hold me for hours. I’m normally a fast-forward viewer — I skip dull dialogue, predictable beats. With Leyla ile Mecnun I almost never needed that button.
Honest take: once the first Leyla left, the level dropped a notch. They shouldn’t have written her out — the cast was complete, it worked, it was great. The second Leyla just didn’t fit. The third Leyla was visibly much taller than Mecnun, which I couldn’t get past, and she also didn’t quite suit the show’s comedic register.
No point dragging this out. It was a good series — much respect to everyone who worked on it. Let me close with a few visuals and clips.
