It feels like the conversation around who the next James Bond will be has been going on for decades. It has filled newspaper columns and flooded social media feeds, becoming a behemoth of Hollywood in its own right. A running joke of sorts in the TV and film industry. And it’s still going to this day. So, when I heard that actor Riz Ahmed had created a Prime Video series that used this very premise as a plot device, I was immediately intrigued.
Bait follows struggling actor Shah Latif (Ahmed) over four chaotic days as his life begins to spiral and unravel while preparing to audition for the role of a lifetime, to be the next James Bond. Set in London, the series is a sharp, hilarious and heartwarming tale of identity, ambition, and cultural pressures. With the cinematic appeal of a typical spy thriller, the series successfully balances comedy with deeper themes of cultural identity and belonging.
The series reminded me of The Studio in how it’s a comedic reflection of Hollywood, but also in how frantic and stressful (in a good way) the pacing of the story is throughout the episodes. Unlike The Studio, however, Bait is entirely unpredictable in where you think the plot is going versus where it’s actually taking the audience. Ahmed’s performance as Shah is brilliant to witness, especially in the later episodes, and really drives home both the comedy and emotional elements – especially his physical acting.
There are more than two billion Muslims in the world, with roughly half of us female, yet we are far from monolithic.
The highlight of Bait, however, is how it approaches the conversation around inclusion and representation, especially when it comes to Muslims. A few years ago, Ahmed supported a large-scale study into Muslim representation in the industry titled Missing & Maligned: The Reality of Muslims in Popular Global Movies. In the study, researchers analysed 200 top-grossing films released between 2017 and 2019 across four countries: the UK, the US, Australia and New Zealand. They found that the overarching trend was that Muslim portrayals in popular films fed into the narrative of the ‘outsider’. Many of the films analysed rooted stories about Muslim characters in historical ‘foreign’ settings and made them distinct through their clothing, faith rituals, and communities. However, Bait doesn’t fall into this trap of negative stereotyping.
Muslims aren’t shown to be ‘outsiders' or ‘foreign’ but communities that are part of the fabric of British life. And it isn’t done in a way that Ahmed is trying to prove our worth or existence through the series, but in a simple and matter-of-fact way that simply showcases life in a British Muslim community. Yet, it doesn’t shy away from showing the audience the harsh reality of living in the UK as a Muslim today and the Islamophobia and racism that so many of us experience on a regular basis.
Bait also manages to hold the nuance and complexity around representation, offering a fresh and hilarious perspective on what inclusion really means in practice. The series shows the audience that a person of a marginalised background occupying a position of privilege and power (like being the next James Bond) isn’t the answer or solution to structural oppressions like racism and Islamophobia. The series presents this in how Shah’s best friend, Zulfi (Guz Khan), rips into Shah with some of the show’s most incredible one-liners; in how Yasmin (Ritu Arya) writes a scathing article about Shah’s latest role, stating that there’s no need for a brown James Bond; and in how Raj (Himesh Patel) steals Shah’s lived experience as a Muslim as his own in a museum speech.
There are stereotypes around South Asian women being oppressed, passive and not having a voice.
It’s also very rare to see Muslims recite the Quran or pray accurately on TV and film, but in Bait, the accuracy is totally there – something which can be easily achieved when you have Muslims present in writers’ rooms and behind-the-scenes production. And then there are scenes like the familial battle to host Eid, which again hits the accuracy element, but is also one of the funniest episodes of the entire series.
Bait may be about a particular faith, culture and community (the Latifs are Muslim and of a South Asian background), but at its heart, the series is about universal themes of belonging, validation, and identity – the distance between who you are and who you want to be. Anyone watching it will find something they can relate to on a personal and human level. Whilst taking big risks, Bait shows us that there is power to authenticity, power to identity and difference, and power to a name – all while being genuinely funny.
All six episodes of Bait premiere globally on Prime Video today (March 25, 2026).
