Posted:
Popular serial Bade Acche Lagte
Hai has just fast forwarded by five
years and the lead couple played by
Sakshi Tanwar and Ram Kapoor
are blessed with five-year-old kids.
Mann Ki Awaaz Pratigya also
went in for a five-year-leap, six
months ago and had Pratigya (Pooja Gor) donning a maternal avatar.
Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata regularly
has an eight-nine month leap or
even lesser and that too quite often,
while Amrit Manthan, a relatively
new show just took a six-month
leap with a major twist in the story
line. The lead girl Amrit now has a
new face!
Generation leaps are a tried and
tested success recipe for a serial
whose storyline is saturated, ratings have hit rock bottom and viewer fatigue has set in. It was the 'K'
serials, that made the concept a big
hit. Since then leaps have become a
part and parcel of soaps, not just
the long-running ones, but also
those that have hardly completed a year on air. Even the span
of the leap has reduced drastically.
Earlier serials would fast
forward by 15-years or more,
today it has come down to
five years and in certain cases
as less as five-six months! Is
this a way to retain actors, who are wary of
donning grey and
playing older
characters?
Sakshi doesn't
think so. "Actors have no
say in these
creative
decisions. Also, it is always challenging to play different shades in a
single character," she contends.
However, Pooja begs to differ. "No
actor would want to put a whitener
in the hair and play a mother or father to actors close to their age,
which the producers have understood. Also, the audience wants to
see the same faces as leads with
whom the show started off. Thus a
gradual leap of four-five years,
where you show the lead couple
with a kid is fine. More than that is
a huge risk as the audience may
lose interest."
Prashaant Bhatt, weekday pro- gramming head, Colors, avers,
"To ensure that connect to the story
and the characters is not broken,
shorter leaps are introduced. In
case of Balika Vadhu, to showcase
the growing up years of Anandi
and Jagya and to move the story
forward while making way for newer content, we introduced a leap of
just five years."
Shorter or longer, (Uttaran
recently jumped ahead by 18-
years) leaps are a way of introducing a fresh element
and drama to the story. New
characters are introduced
to change the dynamics of
story-telling. For instance
in Bade Acche... Sameer
Kocchar has recently made
an entry to spice up things,
while Mohan Kapur has been
added to Amrit Manthan to create intrigue and most importantly Dimple Jhangiani has
been replaced by Ankita Sharma
as Amrit! Go figure..
Anupamaa
Members Lounge
