I'm not saying that the Indian edition of 24 is a terribly bad show. In fact, the show is so awesome, it's nothing like a Saas-Bahu show. It has an alpha male protagonist, unlike every other TV serial you see in India these days. And the women wear like, normal clothes and nobody except the ageing politician Momma wears heavily embroidered ethnic clothes, which is like so unlike every other TV serial you see in India these days. And every time anyone says anything significant, we don't see reaction shots from everyone, which is totally unlike... you get the drift?
Again, it's not so much that I didn't like what I saw, but I've been unable to come up with anything nice to say about this show except for all the stupid things it's not doing with its material - things so stupid, none of our TV shows should be doing them. But they insist on serving us all that banality, because why put in some real thought and invest in a script when your show will get its TRPs even if it is a blur of silk sarees and extreme close-ups?
So it has come to a pass where I'll be a douchebag for not lauding any attempt to break away from the retardedness that passes around for TV content. It will be very impolite to say, point out that there's more to a real-time thriller than a bunch of people in nice suits running about with clenched jaws. Or that gangster babes in India probably don't look that much like G I Joe toys. Or that shooting a hot girl straight in the boob is so B-grade, even Kanti Shah is puckering his nose as you read this. Or what the hell is the elected Prime Minister of India doing in Mumbai on the eve of his swearing-in ceremony? Or how lame it is to portray the said PM as the Angry Young Man version of the 43-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, complete with allusions to an assassinated father, like we can just not come up with interesting politician characters. Or how uninterested I am in the fate of the douchebag PM who goes about shouting at teenagers and bursting tubelights in subways.
No, let's not get into all that and just thank the Powers that Be that we have that one show where the protagonist, instead of waging Sambhar Wars in the Kitchen Of Heaven, wears suits and busts assassination attempts. Let's just be happy that instead of looking like every other Indian show, we finally have something that looks like every other American show.
Yay!
Again, it's not so much that I didn't like what I saw, but I've been unable to come up with anything nice to say about this show except for all the stupid things it's not doing with its material - things so stupid, none of our TV shows should be doing them. But they insist on serving us all that banality, because why put in some real thought and invest in a script when your show will get its TRPs even if it is a blur of silk sarees and extreme close-ups?
So it has come to a pass where I'll be a douchebag for not lauding any attempt to break away from the retardedness that passes around for TV content. It will be very impolite to say, point out that there's more to a real-time thriller than a bunch of people in nice suits running about with clenched jaws. Or that gangster babes in India probably don't look that much like G I Joe toys. Or that shooting a hot girl straight in the boob is so B-grade, even Kanti Shah is puckering his nose as you read this. Or what the hell is the elected Prime Minister of India doing in Mumbai on the eve of his swearing-in ceremony? Or how lame it is to portray the said PM as the Angry Young Man version of the 43-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, complete with allusions to an assassinated father, like we can just not come up with interesting politician characters. Or how uninterested I am in the fate of the douchebag PM who goes about shouting at teenagers and bursting tubelights in subways.
No, let's not get into all that and just thank the Powers that Be that we have that one show where the protagonist, instead of waging Sambhar Wars in the Kitchen Of Heaven, wears suits and busts assassination attempts. Let's just be happy that instead of looking like every other Indian show, we finally have something that looks like every other American show.
Yay!
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