Chakku, excellent post.
But actually the track is fine for now.
The lack of viewership for these past two weeks was expected at the outset itself.
The reason is mostly a combination of two things.
Cricket time, alongside which any series doing actually at least acceptably (2+ TRP) is an achievement.
And far more problematic, for over a year now, every track in MEIEJ has started in a way suited to the mass-audience's preferences, and then backsliding in its forcefeeding attempts to change the track in a way predictably sure to be disinteresting and/or distasteful to the mass-audience.
This happened for every consecutive track, ensuring resultant track-modification each week and then track-closure and almost absolute clean-slating of the elapsed track, to start a new track by ignoring or denying all developments of the previous track.
The current track has been the first in a year that features DVD and does not have any mass-repelling track started even by the end of the second week.
The track-starter fortnight has passed by in which mass-audience could for a year now take for granted the track meandering over to developments disinteresting and/or distasteful to mostly conservative mass-sensibilities.
Love-hate is interesting once in each series for majority-audience, usually the once with just one couple. Maybe two couples, if there are 10 lead couples over the course of pre-leap and post-leap.
More than once, it makes them impatient with watching the couple's understanding develop fluctuatingly, conflict underlining the wasted viewing of previously watching that mutual understanding develop. It may be preferred mostly by the younger audience, who may not suffice in themselves to ensure adequate viewership for a primetime series on a main channel.
Right now, it is essential that Raj and Jr. Madhu remain within the coercive ambit of AK and other unhelpful adversaries, at least until JM completely commits herself unilaterally to the marital relationship regardless of Raj's comprehending it.
Without that pressure, she would seek to place Raj in a comfortable situation, since there would be no reason to stick together and cause him to be further targetted by AK to hurt her.
So her inability to remove him from that situation is crucial for now, as it necessitates her protecting him fiercely and focussedly enough that Radha and Bittu are less of a worry since they are comparatively better able to take care of themselves.
And to effectively stand for Raj, she needs to repeatedly acknowledge their relationship in increasingly public situations.
Once she fully accepts the relationship and wears the mangalsutra and sindoor, AK etc will no longer be necessary as cohabiting characters, and she and Raj could move out of that adversaries-overflowing residence for a while until they can fight back from a stronger position.
On the other hand, if Raj is faking, then her wholly standing by and for their marital relationship while believing him to be lacking would lay a foundation of trust and support to their relationship.
Vitally, unlike in the past tracks, here the villains get comeuppance on a regular basis, even though not yet by the leads or on a major scale.
One does not have the spectacle of the indomitable antagonists making the leads lives miserable and having no mass-satisfactorily discomfiting problems in their own lives.
The worry is not whether a scene or an episode may make majority-audience switch channels to avoid, but rather whether they will watch the next episode in hope of there being no such mass-discomfiting scene.
And the current track is effectively managing that.
Even if mass-audience tunes out, they may still be expected to give a chance to the next episode because every episode with even one extremely unpleasant scene compensates promptly either within that episode itself or the very next episode or both.
It has taken a year for the majority-audience to be sliced by tracks contrary to their tastes from TRP 3+ (peaking to 4+) to 2+ and then 1+.
Fortunately the series has a track-record from the year 2012 of turning to DVD when the TRP hits nadir, and receiving very appreciative viewership-amount reaction, albeit gradually.
The only problem is that the mass-audience then did not have a year of tracks disinteresting/distasteful to their sensibilities to make them skittish of further 'different' ideas in this series.
So now, if the series doesn't recklessly exacerbate that skittishness while competing with IPL, and avoids any 'different' or 'unique' ideas (the unpleasant presentation of which in this series has a probably unsurpassed track-record of necessitating almost total clean-slating in successive tracks for any hope of the mass-audience being willing to give a chance to at least the next track), the tried-and-tested formulae have a decade or two of their potential for success or lack thereof in a few or many variations safely known.
The time and place for learning a new swimming style should not be in choppy waters in terrible weather. We have TRP down and IPL ongoing.
Hopefully, experimentation on any new and untested ideas will be avoided, and track will be prudently tailored to be appealing to the mass-audience, so that TRP can manage to at least stay afloat alongside IPL.
If viewership has enough interest in the track to ensure that result, we'll have improving viewership with their getting the reassurance that they may tune in for MEIEJ everyday without disinterest or distaste against their preferences causing them to change the channel.
Edited by leelaa9 - 11 years ago
Kumkum Bhagya
Anupamaa
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