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Split screen
Another week of thrills and chills
Does
Ashley Judd approve? Or is Mita Vashisht beyond caring? Last week’s
story Fareb on Thriller At 10 had the extremely talented Mita Vashisht
playing Ashley Judd in Double Jeopardy.
The plot was lifted wholesale though judiciously so. Strangely the characters
were made to physically resemble the ones from the original film. Even
the girl who played Vashisht’s cellmate wore her hair and attitude
like Roma Maffia in the original. Certainly the production values in Fareb
were far superior to what we generally get on television.
The nightly quick-fix slot is here to stay. Earlier we had the week-soaps.
Now we have the nightly thriller. Zee had barely grabbed the shiver-giver’s
market when Doordarshan decided to jump in the fray with Suspense Every
Week which comes on thrice a week. I have watched the stories in two consecutive
weeks. The first featured Navnee Parihar as a desperate and jobless woman
from Chandigarh who becomes part of a plan to rob a sick millionaire (Subiraj)
of his millions.
The main brain in this dimwitted plan was played by Arun Bali who wore
a felt hat (probably to look sinister) and spoke through it throughout
the story. The other story was about a rich woman who’s nearly driven
around the bend by an evil man (Sahil) and his super-evil girlfriend (Grusha
Kapoor). The camera angles captured the evil caucus in grotesque close-ups.
Frankly Suspense Every Week reeks of tawdriness. The production values
are abysmal and the story content, though more original than Thriller
At 10 works on clock-work principles of evil designs. The best suspense
serial on satellite television remains Saboot.
I’m so glad Star Plus has revived the excellent series on Sundays
at 10.00 p.m. The writing is exceptional and the performances, specially
by the criminally neglected Aneeta Kanwar, are way above ordinary. It’s
a mystery worthy of investigation by the deceptively homely detective
in Saboot, as to why this series failed to make an impact when it was
first shown last year. Have television viewers become so habituated to
gimmicky melodramas and brainless farces that any hint of subtlety in
a presentation puts them off?
For sure, Sahara TV’s new nightly soap Ret Ka Dariya is more tactful
about its blunt intentions than its nightly counterpart Aangan on Zee
or even Sony’s Ek Mahal Ho Sapano Ka. Ret Ka Dariya tries to look
at the film industry through the eyes of a naive but ambitious film journalist
Anil played by Sanjeev Seth, who’s become typecast in the role of
the native simpleton. He again plays the role effortlessly in Tejaswini
as Renuka Shahane’s husband.
We’ve earlier had serials about the passionate peccadillo’s
in the film industry like Sony’s Jaane Kahan Mera Jigar Gaya Ji and
Zee’s Neeyat. Both serials appear titillating in comparison with
Ret Ka Dariya. The story of an innocent scribe’s infatuation with
a female heart throb and his involvement in her romantic problems, is
told with a certain innocence and professionalism. Of course the production
lacks the resources to recreate the glamour of showbiz. But as a soap
opera it operates competently.
Nowadays we encounter instances of cutting corners in every serial that
we see. Dara Singh is obviously the star attraction on Zee’s Hudd
Kar Di. More often than not he blabbers to his heart’s content while
the rest of the cast including his screen wife Rita Bhaduri, stand around
in a reverent circle.
Director Sachin has a lot to answer for. The entire episode last week
where Mahesh Thakur disguised himself as an Arab sheikh (maybe he wanted
to audition for the Arab bak-bak-fiesta Movers & Sheikhers) was shot
on the floor of one set with artificial props. Even the vase was phoney,
so the serialwallahs could make a phool of us.I guess if we keep Sachin
we are bound to find some humour in this serial about a family that lives
eats and laughs together. On one set.
In Ravi Rai’s Sparsh on Sony the character played by played by Divya
Shah (nee Seth) has begun to resemble Shabana Azmi’s Pooja in Mahesh
Bhatt’s Arth. I guess you can’t keep an ex-assistant of the
Bhatt too far away from him, can you? Last week Ravi Rai even copied Arth’s
famous wife-pleading-with-mistress-on-telephone sequence from Arth. Of
course Bhumi (Seth) sounded far more intimidating than pleading as she
argued and blabbered before Krishna (Mrinal Kulkarni). It’s quite
obvious that Bhumi is cracking up under the strain of marital discord.
Now let’s see which caves in first - the serial or the female protagonist.
Zee’s long-suffering Tejaswini has moved ahead. Now the protagonist
has finally moved from marriage mandap to bedroom where Renuka Shahane
bombarded her harassed husband with corny queries. Corny Query No.1: “Does
your father always speak so rudely to your mother?” (the answer we
would have liked to hear, “No he just got excited to see his new
Bahu”). And Corny Query No.2: “Can you get me a mobile so I
can talk to my mother in peace?” (the answer we never got to hear:
“Why do you need a phone? Your voice is so loud your mother can hear
you if you scream from here?”). Watch out for severe conflicts ahead
between Sasurji Sudhir Pandey and Bahu Renuka Shahane.
If
we’re lucky husband Sanjeev Seth might even play referee between
the two in a free styled wrestling bout. Just kidding. I mean imagine
the jumbo-sized Pandey in a physical battle with the diminutive Renuka!
One longs for comic relief in the tedious outpouring of self-important
soaps and dimwitted sitcoms. Sometimes we get our quota of comicality
from the most unexpected quarters. On BBC’s Question Time India,
BJP’s B P Singhal wondered why there’s such a hue and cry when
a Christian nun is raped when Hindu women are raped all the time. The
women on the panel nearly choked on their indignation.
We hardboiled television viewers, habituated as we are to our finer sensibilities
being violated all the time, felt nun the worse.
Subhash K Jha