Egypt’s bumbling police get their man, at least on television

THE clock is ticking and the interrogation is tense. Hoping to unravel a plot, the warden of Aqrab (“Scorpion”) prison grills an Islamist seated alone in his cell. He scowls, delivers a warning—and then leaves, his questions unanswered. The scene might confuse anyone familiar with Aqrab, one of Egypt’s most notorious jails, where militants and political prisoners are packed into cramped dungeons and tortured. It looks altogether different on “Kalabsh” (“Handcuffs”), a popular series on Egyptian television. The inmates are clean and their interrogations polite, nary a cattle prod in sight.