ONE MORE SEASON: VITAL OR FORCED?
The much-talked about OTT boom in our country is evident from the number of Indian originals being greenlit for a second or third season. While Kunal Kemmustarrer Abhay came out with its third season recently, Mirzapur is gearing up for the release of its third instalment later this year. Shows such as The Family Man and Four More Shots Please also have their upcoming seasons in production. This however, leads one to wonder is renewing shows after a point, organic or are more instalments being developed just to squeeze the popularity of the show further?
Actor Bidita Bag, who was a part of the second season of Abhay, says it’s a mix of both demand and the desire to milk a show’s popularity that gives birth to more seasons. “For Abhay, they have a different story for each season. But some makers drag stories, and become repetitive. Uske baad same story repeat karte hain, that doesn’t work. Zabardasti ek franchise ko kheenchne ki zaroorat nahin hai,” says the 30-year-old.
Romance drama Broken But Beautiful, slice of life series Gullak and sports thriller Inside Edge also had three seasons. Actor Tanuj Virwani, who starred in the last one, feels makers should ideally have a skeletal structure ready and stick to it. “A show like Breaking Bad always knew it needed to have a finite story over a period of five seasons. You don’t want to keep going back to the same pond. But in a story universe such as Inside Edge’s, you can keep bringing in more characters. But just like a performer should not overstay their welcome on stage, shows should not either,” he adds.
While it might seem like a call for the creative team behind the project to decide if a show should go on or not, creators share that it’s often the platform that decides. Actor-writer Dhruv Sehgal, who created the popular romance drama Little Things and also played the lead in it, says, “Even though I am the creator, the show is not my intellectual property. These conversations happen between the production house and the platform. It was not my call if the last season of Little Things is when the story should have ended.”
Bag, here, points out that when shows are extended with no substance left in the story but only for the platform’s sake, it’s the writers who bear the brunt of it. “Writers ke liye bhayanak tension ho jaati hai. I feel bad for them,” she says.
However, director Ken Ghosh, the man behind Abhay S3, says platforms know what they are doing and wouldn’t commission a new season if the previous ones didn’t work. “I haven’t seen a show which I felt was continued just for eyeballs. Like Abhay’s second season had a lot of unresolved questions, so a third season was needed. But at the end of the day, it’s up to the audience. The data the platform collects, such as did the viewer watch the entire season at one go or not, influences the decision,” he asserts.
TANUJ VIRWANI, Actor