Had actually thought there would be at least three days - maybe even four days, just short of the five-days-week - of separation episodes, with probably a leap of several months covered hearsay therein.
A whole week of episodes of Rishbala not in the same frame would be unaffordable in viewership terms, and this time the option of the couple working together would also be disastrous on that front with this current running theme of the wife unintentionally overshadowing the superstar husband in popularity.
Episodes of the two of them working in such a context would probably get even less majority-audience viewership and consequent inadequate TRP than the entire film-shoot did.
So any residential separation would also have left them no scope for sharing the same frame except via the means of accidental meetings.
Instead, CVs seem to be set upon yet another transparent gambit - the irony is that like the interim track preceding the heroine track's just completed run, the second interim track is also likely to be successful until they actually switch from interim track to the heroine track itself since both times seem to have the CVs fixated on a depressing path rather than a positivity path which would yield better dividends.
On the upside, the current track seems to be financially getting good budgeting with multiple outdoor shoots, a few more varied sets besides RK Mansion's main bedroom, living room and dining room, and several scenes stocked (albeit sparsely) with extras.
On the downside, if this is a gambit as seems rather likely to induce audience sympathy for the 'devoted suffering wife unappreciated without any reason by her husband', mass-sympathy may be expected to manifest only so long as there is no heroine track repeat, not even in hearsay, on the base of the wife having already unexpectedly outshone her husband at his expense and to his professional detriment without even realizing it in the aftermath despite repeatedly unmistakeable statements made by acquaintances and media sidelining him and glorifying only her. Just as the sympathy for the unwedding lasted only so long as she did not seem unknowingly to be giving another man reason to believe she was maritally available. It may be unfair as heck, but this is a majority-audience that approves of the female lead giving speeches for other people's rights but expects her to forgive on her own account even being made to walk on frigging pieces of glass.
And unfortunately for any sympathy-gambit tried in however depressingly protracted a manner, every damn track has had RK losing something in each track without gaining anything.
It ensures that any other character would have to lose that much and suffer exponentially and variedly month after month without gaining anything - expectedly or unexpectedly - to get even a portion of the same amount of sympathy.
And since the very point of anything Madhu was or is shown enduring is to gain mass-audience support for her unintentional gains therefrom, it's a gambit invariably assured of not succeeding.
Rather than straightforwardly do Madhu's heroine track with her becoming heroine as her husband's intention to showcase her talent without any ludicrously unbelievable clunky majbooris - making her success something to look forward to, and any negative outcome actually unexpected -, they have instead chosen to have Madhu becoming heroine done unmistakeably and backfiringly in a manner that mass-audience could tune out for weeks in advance with all her sacrifices predictably sure to 'unexpectedly' downgrade the husband's career and unintentionally benefit only the career of the heroine (who soon ended up being Madhu herself) and the director at the expense of her husband's fortune but without the stardom-securing the film was intended to ensure for him.
No matter what variation of 'devoted wife' gambit they try for showing her as heroine, it has not and will not cover the fact that a film which was supposed to secure her husband's stardom had her proactively involved at every point, and her husband's convenient stupidity in accepting her naive insistences to his professional detriment left him overshadowed by her and his money wasted in a film that did not accomplish the very purpose for which it was intended.
It may be somewhat ironic that the very reason that having this extremely popular pairing (where majority-audience has condoned much to see them together) not in the same frame nonadversarially is unaffordable for more than a few episodes is also what could ensure good TRP for the stardom track.
The track itself has no intrinsic interest for majority-audience, and would hold no expectation of adequate or excellent TRP to assure sponsors of the track's financial viability.
But if this couple is presented in a way that does not repel majority audience (unlike this track's and previous track's track-closing records maintained by consistently going against majority-audience's tastes), then the couple itself can be used to ensure that TRP would come in for mass-viewership tuning in to see the couple presented in a mass-appealing way, and that viewership would end up also carrying the stardom track through.
But rather than do this and keep mass-audience tastes in mind while tailoring the tracks, the CVs are instead creating gambits that are transparently hurting or lowering - without gain or approbation within the story - only the male lead in every consecutive track with the intent of gaining mass-approbation for another character, and instead end up each time ensuring mass-sympathy for the male lead and an aversion to seeing him harmed or demeaned, which translates as inadequate TRP week after week and month after month ensuring the closing of successive tracks. The concern is that mass-audience does not have any qualms about demeaning of any and all characters across the board in any or all serials. Some full-fledged torment serial-tracks manage to get 3+, where mass-sympathy translates as willingness to see more of the suffering. Rather, very few characters are such that their being hurt - justifiably or unjustifiably - can adversely affect mass-viewership's interest in watching such tracks. And unfortunately for the CVs every sympathy-gambit, the character losing without gaining anything in track after track is the character that mass-audience would forgive for unwedding, which was rather more hurtful than anything else is ever likely to be no matter how melodramatically packaged for maximum highpoint impact.
The stardom track could probably be started in a week - with sponsors support for couple-unitedly-together minus the consistently mass-unappealing husband-less-than-wife gambits they have been shoving so unsuccessfully for weeks - if they were willing to give up on their fixation of having one lead glorious at the cost of the other almost villainized.
All they would have to do would be to stop their sledgehammeringly clunky mentions of the wife suddenly being the be-all and end-all overshadowing her husband and yet expected to get mass-sympathy when he reacts to a string of deliberate sidelining, much of it in front of her that she is conveniently shown as uncomprehending of despite her being aware of his considerable ego.
Instead, they are trying repeatedly for gambits that present Madhu as both intending benefactor and unintentional beneficiary, with RK as merely the intended beneficiary ending up as unintendedly lowered, with his insecurity thereafter being bizarrely claimed as inexplicable while his wife and manager both seem to forget the very reason why he wasted his money on making a film that has instead backfiringly cost him what it was intended to secure and gained him not even a whit of his stardom indisputably established, instead rather the contrary.
Perhaps the most concerning point of the episode was that they seem to have decided to risk Bittuji's character's popularity rather than restrain the point to Roma.
So far, no character has maintained its popularity with being seen as a means of downgrading RK to glorify another. Radha has been the exception only because she is transparently interested in preserving her son's marriage as a means of herself being bonded to him through his wife without having to be proactive in furthering her maternal tie.
But even the very popular 'Mother India' Padmini's popularity got wrecked despite being pitted against a post-unwedding unremorseful RK.
Roma is not a particularly popular character and could be expended after being used to stoke the "no longer a superstar, new superstar" flames.
Instead, rather than limit the effort to Roma, they seem inclined to use Bittuji as well, with his presumably to be constantly speaking of the virtues of the character intended as the track's sympathy-beneficiary, and making associated comments about the flaws and demerits of the character the audience should *not* sympathize with.
They actually felt the need to outline via Bittuji in detail what points are the ones audience should remember, and what unmentioned points should be conveniently forgotten. If mass-audience has been reacting to specific scenes in so backfiring a manner as to make such a detailed speech from a popular supporting character seem needed, the mind boggles at just how badly their gambits of all these weeks have backfired in terms of mass-viewership.
The problem may be that while most or all of the audience who may agree with Bittuji's words may presumably have been already of that opinion, of greater concern to the CVs should be if the stratagem is likely to change the opinion of apparently a rather larger segment of audience who were not already of such an opinion. If one considers the past nine months of such stratagems repeatedly employed with consistent lack of success, one may presume it unlikely this time as previously.
Anyway, with TRP-mass-audience's reactions and tastes unwaveringly consistent, and pruning and increase of scenes each week indicating what scenes in the previous week induced majority-audience to watch or switch channels, the CVs are unlikely to be rewarded with success for a track if they induce demotivation in mass-viewership by obdurately pursuing an avenue contrary to mass-audience's tastes. But how long that will make before they finally deign to gift the viewers a positively presented stardom track that does not demean the male lead to showcase the female lead - a stratagem predictable in its lack of success despite the depths of appalling martyrdom they tried in the nivaaran scenes -, and the worrying prospect of what sort of depressions they now plan to unfold with a couple who were obsessively in love with each other suddenly behaving in a way that may be supposedly convenient for the unfolding tracks but is hurtfully disappointing and hard to recognize as relatable to their actual characterizations prior to character-butchering.
Edited by leelaa9 - 11 years ago
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
