st&as bankrupts, VD used personal wardrobe before & after leap - Page 2

OMG...I never knew this.

Originally posted by: leelaa9

Sree, awesome post - the situation was so damn exasperating for all of us, and for more than a year.
I'd give credit for the debacle to the channel even more than to the producers, though the latter are not even remotely blameless (and AS stood by the fans far more, especially in ensuring a beautiful last few minutes for the series).
Any channel generally has the final say on what tracks are allowed or vetoed in its serials.

The tracks were confoundingly chosen from March 2013 to August 2014 onwards, with tracks consistently developed in ways that would contravene the longstanding sensibilities on the crucial mass-viewership, with the focus seemingly obsessed in showing the male-lead as bad/weak and the supposedly heroic female-lead actually mass-perceivable as unappreciable in her conduct and her decisions.

If the tracks are guaranteed to send the mostly conservative mass-audience skipping the episodes and track, then the budget slowly and then drastically gets throttled.
If splurging is managed on a few mass-unappreciable scenes, then not only extras but even supporting actors may disappear if their character of track is considered to not be mass-appreciable.

Budget for locations, sets, costumes, extras etc is generally expected to be commensurate with the expectable massive mass-viewership.

The generous budget was visible so long as the characterizations and tracks were expected to be mass-appealing in the forthcoming months. If a track was unlikely to have mass-appeal, it was reined in and/or cut short.
Even if the viewership were poor at the start, the budget would be provided if better and great viewership developing could be assured as per mass-audiences years of consistent sensibilities.

For the tracks after 4-phere wedding, the viewership was poor at start, but budget was visibly good - with 'servants' at RK Mansion, and adequate extras on not just one but several sets - because that sort of mass-appealing track *always* slowly but surely builds mass-viewership if the lead-pairing has mass-appeal.

Also the village-track in the 2nd season was given generous budget, since it was expected that JM in that track would behave like Madhu after the 4-phere marriage.
Female-lead wife pressured into marriage with the male-lead husband and gradually growing into deep caring about her husband, and her honouring the marriage, marital home and the attached relations, and making her marriage a conservatives-appreciable success - it's not progressive or feminist, but it works guaranteedly in getting very massive satisfactory amount of mass-viewership, so long as the pairing's chemistry has mass-appeal among majority-audience.
DVD has had proven mass-appeal, except if hindered by mass-appalling tracks.

Unfortunately for us, every dratted track from March 2013 onwards till the end of the series bungled either at start or a little after start, with the tracks assured of being mass-unappreciable, and DVD as the only consistently reliable mass-appealing factor carrying the series even without TV-promos for the last several months.

Sree its better not to think abt. the idiocity of mb writers n ph bcoz they never made sense in rks character after march

Samitha, Neha, you're both absolutely right on every damn point.
The only one not is that the channel doesn't just have final say on the track, that the channel will decide yes or no for only a basic track, and the PH will then do it how they want. No.
A channel has the final say on *all* of that - what track *and* how it should develop.

We were fortunate that an entertainment channel is hemmed in by one very simple factor - money.
If the channel is willing to swallow the losses for showing mass-unappreciated stuff, then they can show anything they want, as grandly as they want, for as many months or years as they want.
But that's not the case - sponsors etc are expected to pay the tab, while the channel may then have its soaring flight like Icarus with borrowed wings.
ST may have wanted to believe that 'RK' was successful because of its basic characterization rather than the actor playing.
But the attempt to replace the male-lead once in 2013 and once in 2014 - no producer or PH can do that except with a channel's concurrence or insistence.

Remember how the heroine-track was started? RK on that car in that outdoors-scene with the producers, Madhu at Mehul's home (indoors and outdoors), and several other various sets.
The budget was there, because the majority-audience would have no problem if the powerful husband were to make and main-star in a film and the wife were to star in it alongside him.

If the wife were then shown more successful than him *after* the film's release, her fictional career would have to be terminated or the real series MEIEJ would have to be closed.

But the CVs (channel, PH) did something far more reckless - they showed RK as a non-entity from the very *start* of the film's process.
Even the track-presenting promo described Madhu as a gem and *Mehul* as the johri, with *RK* almost invisible in the ad - the female-lead upfront, the male-lead edged out one way or other either by being replaced or being downgraded.
The idiotically guaranteeably backfiring track was: RK's money for a film supposedly for his career, but the decisions would be entirely the director's, the film would clearly benefit only the undecided heroine, and then Madhu became that heroine and she was praised constantly.
Finally, his wife and director celebrated the film which had used his money to wreck his career, and his wife lost the child which would prevent her from promptly continuing as actress - and the CVs thought this would get mass-sympathy for Madhu to separate.

Majority-audience don't have any fandom-reason or care to give a chance to a track.
If they think they'll like what they guess is upcoming, they'll watch. If they guess that they won't like it, they won't watch.

If the female-lead were to be shown killing her mother, she might be forgiven by the mass-audience.
But if she's shown slapping her mass-popular husband on more than one occasion, you have just reduced her to nonexistent mass-sympathy for anything she endures.

Madhu had her 'one slap to husband' during the separation after the unwedding. She could not be shown slapping him ever again for any reason without eroding her own mass-approval.
But the CVs had her do that not just once but twice.

First, she was shown slapping RK to make a scene look real - and RK was shown laughingly accepting it the same way he was shown accepting a heroine-centric story being made with his money.
The CVs could make their fictional male-lead stupid enough to react according to their convenience, but they had not a chance of getting the massive mostly conservative majority-audience to be stupid enough not to see that Madhu would be the only one glorying in the film's result at her husband's expense.

We have a frigging regressive mass-audience who love hearing female-lead *speak* of self-respect but they watch her humiliations by intended husband or sasuraal without a qualm.
If the tracks start showing her actually living by the self-respect speeches for *herself*, the mass-viewership tanks if it hasn't already.
Ria was supposed to be part of the reasons Madhu would separate. Mass-popular pairings are expected to reconcile with the wife's absolute devotion even if the husband has kids with the other woman. An affair or almost-affair was not even going to be a blink of concern for mass-audience to encourage wife's great career.

And if the male-lead is more mass-popular than any of the supporting characters, then his self-respect and even his ego should be treated as the most fragile lifeline which can preserve or terminate a track.

If such a mass-popular male-lead's ego is even slightly hurt, the supporting character doing that may have to disappear or become absolutely conciliatory.
A female-lead even watching the mass-popular male-lead's insult ends up getting humiliated for months in the next track indirect recompense.

Here, the CVs seemed to think the massive mass-audience were some sort of feminists who would enjoy RK being downgraded. Whereas what was actually sure was that Madhu's mass-support was going to get eroded, with RK getting mass-empathy for his wife not appreciating the slights he was suffering.

In any track of the hero's troubles, the mass-audience watches to see his dignity protected. He is the only male they intend to sympathize with, whether he is right or wrong.
Here, they tried to constantly show the other guy - in 2013 and in 2014 - as either nicer or more powerful, either way more impressive.
It doesn't work.

A serial or story doesn't decide who are to be the leads or vamps or villains. The mass-audience decides. If they prefer the villain and sympathize with him, then for ratings sake, he needs to be the male lead. If they like some 'other woman' more, then she becomes the constant in the pairing.

Here, they kept trying sympathy-gambits, first to make Sultan more sympathizable and RK bad, then tried for Sultan great villain and RK weak helpless idiot. Then Sultan was gone. But the channel's tracks still held to the constant theme of RK either bad or weak, except that now they tried to do it so that Madhu would get mass-sympathy instead.

The tracks were transparent and guaranteed to backfire - RK the brute or idiot, Madhu either bechaari or saviour.
But the problem was that Madhu bechaari was shown as the one benefitting at her husband's expense, while RK brute was shown having been constantly slighted.
Madhu saviour was not mass-sympathizable because RK had already been shown (in successful tracks) as shrewd enough to save himself and her. So his stupidity - like his ban - were transparently so that he could suffer and then be rescued by her. And almost throughout, she would be shown in comfort in their home while he seemed to keep switching between jail and hospital.

And there was a worse problem to derail the CVs hopes of downgrading RK (they didn't try to shown Abhay as less impressive than JM suring the 2nd season while trying the 2014 male-lead replacement.):
Majority-audience have *never* had a problem forgiving a male-lead for *anything* if they love him. It has nothing to do with backstory etc. They decide who to support (it has nothing to do with his looks or age), and the story has to change accordingly.

Here the CVs were under the impression that RK brutal would get mass-support for Madhu, when actually around 4-phere wedding, during unwedding, and March-May 2013, he had been shown as far more brutal - and it had not eroded his mass-support.

Every sympathy-gambit to get mass-support to switch was assured of flopping at the very start, because the mostly conservative mass-audience's tastes have not changed in the past two decades. What they would watch comfortably for the past so many years and dozens of serials and tracks, they still do. What they would not think acceptable viewing, they still don't.
We had rotten luck that the channel first tried to prove the male-lead was replaceable, and having failed in that, they then kept trying - and we had to endure the spectacle of a successful 3-4 TRP series being shoved into ill-fitting slots and the mass-viewership getting eroded massively over 18 months of consecutive mass-appalling viewership-eroding tracks.

Originally posted by: leelaa9

Samitha, Neha, you're both absolutely right on every damn point.
The only one not is that the channel doesn't just have final say on the track, that the channel will decide yes or no for only a basic track, and the PH will then do it how they want. No.
A channel has the final say on *all* of that - what track *and* how it should develop.

We were fortunate that an entertainment channel is hemmed in by one very simple factor - money.
If the channel is willing to swallow the losses for showing mass-unappreciated stuff, then they can show anything they want, as grandly as they want, for as many months or years as they want.
But that's not the case - sponsors etc are expected to pay the tab, while the channel may then have its soaring flight like Icarus with borrowed wings.
ST may have wanted to believe that 'RK' was successful because of its basic characterization rather than the actor playing.
But the attempt to replace the male-lead once in 2013 and once in 2014 - no producer or PH can do that except with a channel's concurrence or insistence.

Remember how the heroine-track was started? RK on that car in that outdoors-scene with the producers, Madhu at Mehul's home (indoors and outdoors), and several other various sets.
The budget was there, because the majority-audience would have no problem if the powerful husband were to make and main-star in a film and the wife were to star in it alongside him.

If the wife were then shown more successful than him *after* the film's release, her fictional career would have to be terminated or the real series MEIEJ would have to be closed.

But the CVs (channel, PH) did something far more reckless - they showed RK as a non-entity from the very *start* of the film's process.
Even the track-presenting promo described Madhu as a gem and *Mehul* as the johri, with *RK* almost invisible in the ad - the female-lead upfront, the male-lead edged out one way or other either by being replaced or being downgraded.
The idiotically guaranteeably backfiring track was: RK's money for a film supposedly for his career, but the decisions would be entirely the director's, the film would clearly benefit only the undecided heroine, and then Madhu became that heroine and she was praised constantly.
Finally, his wife and director celebrated the film which had used his money to wreck his career, and his wife lost the child which would prevent her from promptly continuing as actress - and the CVs thought this would get mass-sympathy for Madhu to separate.

Majority-audience don't have any fandom-reason or care to give a chance to a track.
If they think they'll like what they guess is upcoming, they'll watch. If they guess that they won't like it, they won't watch.

If the female-lead were to be shown killing her mother, she might be forgiven by the mass-audience.
But if she's shown slapping her mass-popular husband on more than one occasion, you have just reduced her to nonexistent mass-sympathy for anything she endures.

Madhu had her 'one slap to husband' during the separation after the unwedding. She could not be shown slapping him ever again for any reason without eroding her own mass-approval.
But the CVs had her do that not just once but twice.

First, she was shown slapping RK to make a scene look real - and RK was shown laughingly accepting it the same way he was shown accepting a heroine-centric story being made with his money.
The CVs could make their fictional male-lead stupid enough to react according to their convenience, but they had not a chance of getting the massive mostly conservative majority-audience to be stupid enough not to see that Madhu would be the only one glorying in the film's result at her husband's expense.

We have a frigging regressive mass-audience who love hearing female-lead *speak* of self-respect but they watch her humiliations by intended husband or sasuraal without a qualm.
If the tracks start showing her actually living by the self-respect speeches for *herself*, the mass-viewership tanks if it hasn't already.
Ria was supposed to be part of the reasons Madhu would separate. Mass-popular pairings are expected to reconcile with the wife's absolute devotion even if the husband has kids with the other woman. An affair or almost-affair was not even going to be a blink of concern for mass-audience to encourage wife's great career.

And if the male-lead is more mass-popular than any of the supporting characters, then his self-respect and even his ego should be treated as the most fragile lifeline which can preserve or terminate a track.

If such a mass-popular male-lead's ego is even slightly hurt, the supporting character doing that may have to disappear or become absolutely conciliatory.
A female-lead even watching the mass-popular male-lead's insult ends up getting humiliated for months in the next track indirect recompense.

Here, the CVs seemed to think the massive mass-audience were some sort of feminists who would enjoy RK being downgraded. Whereas what was actually sure was that Madhu's mass-support was going to get eroded, with RK getting mass-empathy for his wife not appreciating the slights he was suffering.

In any track of the hero's troubles, the mass-audience watches to see his dignity protected. He is the only male they intend to sympathize with, whether he is right or wrong.
Here, they tried to constantly show the other guy - in 2013 and in 2014 - as either nicer or more powerful, either way more impressive.
It doesn't work.

A serial or story doesn't decide who are to be the leads or vamps or villains. The mass-audience decides. If they prefer the villain and sympathize with him, then for ratings sake, he needs to be the male lead. If they like some 'other woman' more, then she becomes the constant in the pairing.

Here, they kept trying sympathy-gambits, first to make Sultan more sympathizable and RK bad, then tried for Sultan great villain and RK weak helpless idiot. Then Sultan was gone. But the channel's tracks still held to the constant theme of RK either bad or weak, except that now they tried to do it so that Madhu would get mass-sympathy instead.

The tracks were transparent and guaranteed to backfire - RK the brute or idiot, Madhu either bechaari or saviour.
But the problem was that Madhu bechaari was shown as the one benefitting at her husband's expense, while RK brute was shown having been constantly slighted.
Madhu saviour was not mass-sympathizable because RK had already been shown (in successful tracks) as shrewd enough to save himself and her. So his stupidity - like his ban - were transparently so that he could suffer and then be rescued by her. And almost throughout, she would be shown in comfort in their home while he seemed to keep switching between jail and hospital.

And there was a worse problem to derail the CVs hopes of downgrading RK (they didn't try to shown Abhay as less impressive than JM suring the 2nd season while trying the 2014 male-lead replacement.):
Majority-audience have *never* had a problem forgiving a male-lead for *anything* if they love him. It has nothing to do with backstory etc. They decide who to support (it has nothing to do with his looks or age), and the story has to change accordingly.

Here the CVs were under the impression that RK brutal would get mass-support for Madhu, when actually around 4-phere wedding, during unwedding, and March-May 2013, he had been shown as far more brutal - and it had not eroded his mass-support.

Every sympathy-gambit to get mass-support to switch was assured of flopping at the very start, because the mostly conservative mass-audience's tastes have not changed in the past two decades. What they would watch comfortably for the past so many years and dozens of serials and tracks, they still do. What they would not think acceptable viewing, they still don't.
We had rotten luck that the channel first tried to prove the male-lead was replaceable, and having failed in that, they then kept trying - and we had to endure the spectacle of a successful 3-4 TRP series being shoved into ill-fitting slots and the mass-viewership getting eroded massively over 18 months of consecutive mass-appalling viewership-eroding tracks.

Well said Leela and Neha...

Originally posted by: Love-Blossoms

Very well said di

i actually never understood y they exactly needed sympathy for sultan n madhu at the expemse of rks character it isnt like all humans r perfect all have flaws so y ruining one partivular character to make ppl like other characters n that too the male lead who was the usp of show the ratings got high only when rk entered then what was the point of degrading him n making him a idiot when he was the major reason of success of show .

It clearly showed us that they were ruining him purposely to glorify madhu n sulbala pairing which actually backfired on them . I actually think if madhu would have tried to make rk realise his love instead of spending nights at sultans place then ppl wld . have actually sympathesized with her bcoz she was still rks wife n it is obvious mass ppl wont accept a wife staying at gangsters place at night luking after his kid contrary to her own prev. actions of sending a superstar to jail bcoz of hit n run but bcoz her hubby left her so she started supporting gangsters .n even padmini who killed her husband for righteousness n called rk monster at several occassions became a fan of gangster n supported him inspite of his criminal background .

it was highly inacceptable for ppl to even respecte the mother daughter duo who called rk as monster bcoz he did some mistakes but a cold blooded murderer was considered a saint by same females . I dnt think our audience is that much stupid to not see their hypocrisy n lack of morales in distinguishing between sultan n rk several times n that gave them major reasons to support rk bcoz even at his worst he was thinking of the welfare of madhu n her family by asking her to stay away from sultan which was returned with constant insults to him .

I too felt Madhu is going make RK realize his love and junoon for Madhu . but they didn't show what we expected them . from unwed [ even on unwed day ] day to till sultan entered and after sultan entered they are soo many incidents which indicated RK loves Madhu a lot but hiding his love behind his ego . The Superstar RK leaving Madhu which is big blunder done by st and as . but they played clever game on unwed day night drama where they show RK's care for Madhu for second when she brokedown as he turned and watched Madhu . I also felt RK doesn't like to give explanation to anyone but do' s what he wants . but on unwed night RK gave reply . I mean explanation to each question of Madhu . RK didn't leave Madhu telling that I took revenge but he tried a lot by giving explanations to Madhu till she didn't get convinced that RK took revenge on Madhu . RK's revenge is over , he shoud leave from that place leaving Madhu but no , he is concerned about Madhu a lot that he couldn't able to leave her alone so , he took her to chawl and he himself told about their relation infront of chawl people . in RK Mansion , RK warned to take care of Madhu and see she don't try to suicide . when padmini cursed RK , kahin na kahin he accepted those curses .

Yes, Neha n leela di . 100% I agree with ur comments.

Yes sree di. What u said is right. Even after the unwedding RK was concerned for madhu. He didn't want to leave her alone there in the mandap at night. He brought her back to the chawl. It would have been great if madhu had taken it as a challenge to make RK eat his words n accept his love with full honours. Just imagine this... Madhu with the help of RADHAJI n bittuji acting like she has moved on in life in front of RK. Our hero all jealous of all the males madhu talks to. That would have been great to watch instead of introducing all unwanted characters. They butchered all the characters just to glorify one character n it fell flat on its face.

I wonder why they did started MB2 when they didn't want to invest money? 😡 It was totally messed up at the end.