American and British television seems to have taken care of this dilemma of the not-so-regular television viewer by shows that don’t require you to block time in your diary every day in order to know what happened next. The answer was the entry of the mini-series. Rome, Band Of Brothers, Generation Kill and Carnival are just a few American mini-series that gained so much popularity.
Indian television was not far behind and tried to get the concept of short stories back with shows like Yule Love Stories, Star Bestsellers and Specials @10. In fact, these shows got on board famous directors like Madhur Bhandarkar, Anuraj Kashyap, Vikram Bhatt and Mahesh Manjrekar, but still failed to create a buzz. The American shows on the other hand are still repeated on television and are regular requests on the download circuits too.
In fact, these mini-series started to get so popular that film director Steven Spielberg is currently all geared up for his next television mini-series, The Pacific. The 10-part World War II series is being produced by Spielberg along with Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman for HBO.
The production value of the series in the West is mind-boggling. The budget of The Pacific is US $150 million, which is more than most Hollywood films. So the great visuals and snappy storyline give a big push for viewers to miss a couple of episodes of their regular shows and watch these better productions.
“They treat these television series as movies. It’s a great chance for new filmmakers. The same thing was tried in India with so many shows, but unfortunately the audience didn’t take to it. Maybe adding a few film stars could help.” says short filmmakerBejoy Nambiar.
“It’s also because Indian women get very attached to characters,” explains Ashwini Dheer, writer and producer of shows like Lapataganj and Office Office on SabTV. “Women love to gossip. These characters become a part of their lives and they get pleasure in discussing their lives during their evening walks. I don’t think they will be able to deal with new characters and stories every week.”
Actors on the other hand love the mini-series. It allows them to show off their acting prowess on the extremely huge scale of television without committing to a show for years on end. “Madhur Bhandarkar liked my performance in Specials @ 10 and signed me up for a really good role in his next film Jail,” actor Aarya Babbar tells us.
But looking at the high TRPs and the number of new dailies being churned out each day, it looks like the audience is content with one story being pulled along for months to an end. A few brave souls like SabTV try continuously to bring in newer and shorter stories on the TV circuit but it doesn’t seem to have caught on.
