Posted:
Friends,
I do not know how many of you will remember me, for I had long ago stopped writing analyses of individual Arjun episodes from the strictly ETF procedural point of view. I hope at least some of you still do!😉
However, I have continued to be a faithful and committed viewer of the biweekly episodes, not missing a single one since the show began over a year ago. It is the best fictional crime series in Hindi language TV at the moment, from both the scripting and acting points of view, and I have rejoiced in many of the exceptional episodes in the past. The script writers maintained a balance between the professional and the personal lives of their characters, with the latter emerging in carefully inserted bits and pieces, and the thread of the Sikandar backstory was kept up, even if only fitfully.
There was a social message in many of the episodes, as in the very powerful one on a baanjh woman, on honour killings, on drugs, and even on the wastage of water (though to show people dying of thirst was way OTT and factually wrong), and of late there was the novel and useful Arjun ka Suraksha Chakra (now abandoned, it seems).
Unfortunately, our favourite serial seems now to be falling on bad, and sad times. It is not just that Rathore has vanished - though with his leaving, it can be seen how necessary he was as a balancer to Arjun. Chotu seems to have gone missing as well. So the ETF conference table looks empty, like an over large dining table for a family of just 4/5.
Far worse is the deteriorating quality of the scripts. When a superior crime series starts falling back on deranged serial killers, as Arjun has been doing for the past 2-3 weeks - with murderous auto rickshaw drivers and a tantrik organising a human sacrifice of his own son to get back his dead wife - it is a danger signal.
But it was yesterday's episode about the doorbell killer that was the pits. Firstly, where was the need to make such a very violent episode - with a nail driven into the forehead of a gentle and kindly priest by the boy he had befriended and brought up, people stabbed in the throat with knives, a woman killed by asyphixiation and stuffed in her own refrigerator?
And the most horrible of all, the unclothed body of a raped and strangled teenager, covered only with a towel, her hands tied to the bedposts? And with the killer luxuriating in a foam filled bathtub? When I watched that child on the bed, I felt like throwing up.
It was perversion at its worst, for that image, following on the earlier shots of the killer fondling a photo of the girl in shorts, was clearly meant not to horrify, but as titillation. How many copycat murderers would you bet that those scenes inspire? It was SICK.
Why do the writers, the director, the producers, have to stoop so low? Yes, we all know that such horrors are a daily occurrence in one part or the other of every country in the world. There are enough crime reality shows covering those crimes, and they are aired later in the evening, when children are in bed, and moreover one knows in advance what to expect from reality shows about the seamier side of life.
But Arjun is a prime time show at 8 pm and many children, who are still up then, must be watching it. Are they to be treated to the nail in a man's forehead and that child on the bed?
It is disgraceful, and I intend to take this up strongly with the Broadcasting Control Commission, in the faint hope that they might be able to get the producers of Arjun to clean up their act. I would urge those who share my reaction to this episode to do the same, and also write to the channel and to the PH. It is absolutely necessary.
But if this is the way they mean to continue, I only hope that Star Plus pulls the plug on the show well before December, so that we are not subjected to any more ugly, violent and perverse episodes like the one of Sunday, September 22, 2013.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
PS: Besides the above, it was also a poor show in other ways as well. Shree, a trained ETF officer, is not aware that the killer is creeping up on him from behind till he hits him with a chair. The doctor continues to stare at the body of his wife, her head in a plastic bag, for what seems like ages, instead of immediately removing the bag and making sure that she is dead, thus giving the killer all the time in the world to hit him on the head from behind. Finally, in an insufferably preachy remark, Shree asks Arjun not to let his uniform be besmirched, presumably by some sort of police excess. How dumb can you get? The only saving grace was Arjun shooting the monster dead point blank.
I do not know how many of you will remember me, for I had long ago stopped writing analyses of individual Arjun episodes from the strictly ETF procedural point of view. I hope at least some of you still do!😉
However, I have continued to be a faithful and committed viewer of the biweekly episodes, not missing a single one since the show began over a year ago. It is the best fictional crime series in Hindi language TV at the moment, from both the scripting and acting points of view, and I have rejoiced in many of the exceptional episodes in the past. The script writers maintained a balance between the professional and the personal lives of their characters, with the latter emerging in carefully inserted bits and pieces, and the thread of the Sikandar backstory was kept up, even if only fitfully.
There was a social message in many of the episodes, as in the very powerful one on a baanjh woman, on honour killings, on drugs, and even on the wastage of water (though to show people dying of thirst was way OTT and factually wrong), and of late there was the novel and useful Arjun ka Suraksha Chakra (now abandoned, it seems).
Unfortunately, our favourite serial seems now to be falling on bad, and sad times. It is not just that Rathore has vanished - though with his leaving, it can be seen how necessary he was as a balancer to Arjun. Chotu seems to have gone missing as well. So the ETF conference table looks empty, like an over large dining table for a family of just 4/5.
Far worse is the deteriorating quality of the scripts. When a superior crime series starts falling back on deranged serial killers, as Arjun has been doing for the past 2-3 weeks - with murderous auto rickshaw drivers and a tantrik organising a human sacrifice of his own son to get back his dead wife - it is a danger signal.
But it was yesterday's episode about the doorbell killer that was the pits. Firstly, where was the need to make such a very violent episode - with a nail driven into the forehead of a gentle and kindly priest by the boy he had befriended and brought up, people stabbed in the throat with knives, a woman killed by asyphixiation and stuffed in her own refrigerator?
And the most horrible of all, the unclothed body of a raped and strangled teenager, covered only with a towel, her hands tied to the bedposts? And with the killer luxuriating in a foam filled bathtub? When I watched that child on the bed, I felt like throwing up.
It was perversion at its worst, for that image, following on the earlier shots of the killer fondling a photo of the girl in shorts, was clearly meant not to horrify, but as titillation. How many copycat murderers would you bet that those scenes inspire? It was SICK.
Why do the writers, the director, the producers, have to stoop so low? Yes, we all know that such horrors are a daily occurrence in one part or the other of every country in the world. There are enough crime reality shows covering those crimes, and they are aired later in the evening, when children are in bed, and moreover one knows in advance what to expect from reality shows about the seamier side of life.
But Arjun is a prime time show at 8 pm and many children, who are still up then, must be watching it. Are they to be treated to the nail in a man's forehead and that child on the bed?
It is disgraceful, and I intend to take this up strongly with the Broadcasting Control Commission, in the faint hope that they might be able to get the producers of Arjun to clean up their act. I would urge those who share my reaction to this episode to do the same, and also write to the channel and to the PH. It is absolutely necessary.
But if this is the way they mean to continue, I only hope that Star Plus pulls the plug on the show well before December, so that we are not subjected to any more ugly, violent and perverse episodes like the one of Sunday, September 22, 2013.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
PS: Besides the above, it was also a poor show in other ways as well. Shree, a trained ETF officer, is not aware that the killer is creeping up on him from behind till he hits him with a chair. The doctor continues to stare at the body of his wife, her head in a plastic bag, for what seems like ages, instead of immediately removing the bag and making sure that she is dead, thus giving the killer all the time in the world to hit him on the head from behind. Finally, in an insufferably preachy remark, Shree asks Arjun not to let his uniform be besmirched, presumably by some sort of police excess. How dumb can you get? The only saving grace was Arjun shooting the monster dead point blank.
Seher Hone Ko Hai
Marathi TV
Current Affairs
