^^^
about dadi, rhea.
her entry was abrupt as was her exit. she was to me a trp ploy, devised by the new writer who had had many years of such "twist" writing with ekta. ved raj has also written for ekta (who hasn't) but i think jainesh was more in that groove.
they chose an actress who is apparently well known. gave her a rough nasty role, a complete contrast to the other elders of the show. she presented a mindset till now not brought into ipk...
her "avaidh" talk was obviously meant to please a certain type of audience...
and then the song and dance of a loud serial wedding was meant to add more trp joy.
i think as you say, trp did not really rise. and actually i think several real fans of ipk walked away over this period. i for one, didliked teh acting as much as the oddness of teh whole thing... masala ma ma, bubbly, dadi, all trp bids, all failed. because the main trp draw, the story... was not taken further, the leads not followed... the intrigue of nafrat and mohabbat not evolved.
the wedding costumes i remember most people disliked and found wanting in terms of grandeur and beauty. there used to be talk of how other serials have much better wedding finery. of course, the general wardrobe of the lead already had everyone utterly irritated.
then suddenly dadi was out... really why. maybe what you surmise is right, for the time being she is sent off, to appear later in some other virulent form... and still later to be saved or something by khushi and so utterly falling under her spell. the good wife... the acchi bahu conquers all.
dadi's exit and jainesh's pretty much coincided i think... just another experiment by the know all channel and ph, while viewers are left high and dry.
one thing i did learn from ipk, as a creative person, okay i knew it all along, but here was proof: you can't please everyone. you have to choose your motive and your audience, and go for it. works works, if not, goclse down, try something else.
here they had broken through to an international audience like they never ever had before. tonnes of non hindi tv viewers coming in... some day they could have turned this into a paying proposition.
but they were hungry for desi market share... the money of advertisers.
i find it strange... this is the largest gec, they have so many programmes that bring money, surely with one they could have experimented a bit, seen hat it brings them? something they could work on and develop...
in september 2011, ipk levelledwith and surpassed balika vadhu in the 8 pm slot... hai re nand kissore, its very success might have brought the wrong kind of ficus then the death knell.
not just dadi... shadi was also forced on ipk by the channel i think. again that trp natak... the kitchen audience apparently need pyaar to be ratified by shadi.
sorry to digress.
but dadi was just awful story telling. and so was rejected by all audiences.
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