A review on 'Reporters' so far.

Originally posted by: flipfl0p

I know, there is still more than a month for the "Reporters" to end. There is no need to write a farewell post yet. Still I felt, let me review the show honestly much before it ends. Some of you might agree or disagree. Please register what you agreed with or what you disagreed on. Collectively, let's contribute to make our show better.

Let's admit, this show was not a TRP puller. The reason could be either content (it was not female or family oriented) or show's marketing. We can't fault the execution (at least the beginning. Recently we are aware about channel's interference). Yes, I do have criticisms about the execution as well (which I will bring about). But I don't think it would have made a difference in TRP. It would have only satisfied the loyal audience a bit more.

First of all, who were the target audience for "Reporters"? Obviously not those who were watching family dramas, instead those who had stayed out of such serials. Specially men. If packaged well and marketed well, these people can be brought back to TV. They made Satyameva Jayate a high TRP puller. The trailer of Rajeev sipping the coffee, saying "Khabre banaayi jaati hei", made my news channel husband to take notice of the serial. But he did not follow up after couple of episodes. I am not blaming the serial makers for his disinterestedness, as he never watches tele serials. But "Reporters" had a chance of being a bridge between a realistic documentary and soap. But it restricted to being soap.


Recently after watching some Pak dramas I realised, they start introducing the male and female in the single frame after quite a few episodes (while both characters are sketched individually till then). Romantic angle triggers in the middle. (Even there, single frames do not exceed 5 minutes). By the time romance becomes full fledged, story will stop and leave audience in high. In Indian stories, most of the time male and female leads are introduced together, they start coming in single frame from the very first episode.

"Reporters", though claimed to be different, followed the conventional pattern. We did not get any initial episodes where Kabir and Ananya worked as normal colleagues working on different stories with different people, not interfering with each other. Ananya was a fan girl of Kabir from day one. Tashan between the leads started since beginning. As a romantic buff, I would like it. But fact was, it was not any different from other love stories, just a different backdrop. If this was a failure from execution side, launching it during IPL was a marketing fault, for the loss of its target audience. All in all it never showed, "kaise Khabre banaayi jaati hei" as shown in promo.


Serial promised us romance with romanch. Baaghi track provided both. It still continues to be favourite track among viewers. Unfortunately when we were expecting many such cases, these days we are fed only romance, tiffs, pati patni aur dhoka stories. (Decades back, there was another serial with the same name in Doordarshan, which lifted Shekhar Suman's career from being a flop star. It relied majorly on thrilling aspect of reporting with a very thin romantic track). The current plot in reporters hardly considers its backdrop as a news channel. The current story holds, even if KKN is a perfume company instead of a news channel.

Let me consider the individual aspects.

Memorable scenes from the serial:

A mentor at loss of words when he sees his protege in Saree, their parting hug, a doctor who pleads his love helplessly in front of her family, he does not know how to stop people moving away from him. How many years since these scenes have passed? Still the viewers remember them and the dialogues there in. LRL or KTLK gave many such memorable scenes for its viewers (KTH as well probably. Just that, I have not watched). Coming to "Reporters", how many such iconic scenes we have? I will definitely count on proposal scene. I even loved Ronnie's sweet proposal ( tum nervous mat kar ). Then of course, Kabir breaking Ananya's glasses in Madhonat track! But I can't count on too many intense romantic moments. Last week, their date and dance looked eye candy. But I don't think I would recall them after years. In my honest opinion, their fight scenes look so raw, real and intense. But romance look glossy and superficial like Karan Johar movies.

Less of gestures, symbolism:

There need not be any words, only gestures would do. How do we recognise our colleagues that they have fallen in love? When they start paying attention to detail of the other which nobody noticed. Just imagine, Kabir forgets to bring an important file before board meeting. Ananya notices it before anybody and brings it for him at the right time. His appreciates her in his eyes. This would have raised many eyebrows. First of all, how did Ananya come to know? Second, why Kabir did not thank her formally. This could have looked better than ILUs indifferent languages. But this is my personal opinion.

I consider Isharas looks more romantic on screen than words (like how we loved texting scene in initial days). But in this serial, romantic scenes are very vocal. Exception like Baingan ka Barta scene exists. Let's imagine, they had a serious fight. Afterwards Ananya suddenly pops into Kabir's house. Both eat together, watch TV together, steal glances, but not speak with each other for two hours. At the end Ananya says, she needs to go. Kabir says "abhi?" Then realises it is getting late and drops her. There may not be any words exchanged, but that would have been so reassuring for us.

Conflict of ethics with corporate culture:

We all tend to believe, though Kabir presents himself to the world as business minded, he is actually untouched by corporate culture. What are the instances? When he went to meet the orphan kids. But I never saw any cynicism whenever he flirted with Malavika or other women. I never saw him feeling for commoner's problem like his mentor Panditji did. I wanted to see a raw reporter with his ethics intact under the shade of sophisticated Kabir Sharma. Unfortunately I did not.

Human interest stories:

I remember Nalini Singh's programme "Hello Zindagi", which I rate over "Satyameva Jayate". She was not asking victims to come to the studio, instead she went to their villages and interviewed them. Sometimes victim's face was not shown as well (may be for protection, or it helped in open revelation). Ananya's human interest stories had much more power in showing social underbellies than just interviewing a guy who is disappointed in love.

While covering them, if she comes under government wrath, how Kabir would protect her, would have been thrilling to watch rather than him protecting her from Shreya.

Reporter's helplessness:

When I was a kid, when I did not know what journalism was, the morning local radio used to sponsored a program. The radio programme anchors (they probably were not trained journalists) meet the people who were deprived of privileges government promised them and listen to their demands and broadcast their condition. Every time I used to be shaken, when the victims pleaded with radio guys to "do something". My school teacher used to be angry with these guys for not doing anything for them! This is after the media people repeatedly saying, "they are only portal". Finally, the local radio raised to the next level, where they started interviewing the concerned government officials and broadcasting their interview as well. I don't remember, whether it brought any change in people's life. But it showed people's despair to cling to any support and reporter's helplessness.

I wanted to see Kabir's helplessness, despite being a powerful and popular person (not just in front of Shreya!). If the show is ending, I would like to see such conflict in Kabir's mind. Should one continue with their job in which are best at, or should one try a different unknown route to make an impact? This at least would leave us with some hope, Kabir can come back on some other day.

Originally posted by: flipfl0p

I know, there is still more than a month for the "Reporters" to end. There is no need to write a farewell post yet. Still I felt, let me review the show honestly much before it ends. Some of you might agree or disagree. Please register what you agreed with or what you disagreed on. Collectively, let's contribute to make our show better.

Thanks for this superb review, here comes my two (or twenty 😉) cents..

Let's admit, this show was not a TRP puller. The reason could be either content (it was not female or family oriented) or show's marketing. We can't fault the execution (at least the beginning. Recently we are aware about channel's interference). Yes, I do have criticisms about the execution as well (which I will bring about). But I don't think it would have made a difference in TRP. It would have only satisfied the loyal audience a bit more.

Agreed, the execution could have been better, but I don't think a better execution would have brought more audience.

First of all, who were the target audience for "Reporters"? Obviously not those who were watching family dramas, instead those who had stayed out of such serials. Specially men. If packaged well and marketed well, these people can be brought back to TV. They made Satyameva Jayate a high TRP puller. The trailer of Rajeev sipping the coffee, saying "Khabre banaayi jaati hei", made my news channel husband to take notice of the serial. But he did not follow up after couple of episodes. I am not blaming the serial makers for his disinterestedness, as he never watches tele serials. But "Reporters" had a chance of being a bridge between a realistic documentary and soap. But it restricted to being soap.

Recently after watching some Pak dramas I realised, they start introducing the male and female in the single frame after quite a few episodes (while both characters are sketched individually till then). Romantic angle triggers in the middle. (Even there, single frames do not exceed 5 minutes). By the time romance becomes full fledged, story will stop and leave audience in high. In Indian stories, most of the time male and female leads are introduced together, they start coming in single frame from the very first episode.

"Reporters", though claimed to be different, followed the conventional pattern. We did not get any initial episodes where Kabir and Ananya worked as normal colleagues working on different stories with different people, not interfering with each other. Ananya was a fan girl of Kabir from day one. Tashan between the leads started since beginning. As a romantic buff, I would like it. But fact was, it was not any different from other love stories, just a different backdrop. If this was a failure from execution side, launching it during IPL was a marketing fault, for the loss of its target audience. All in all it never showed, "kaise Khabre banaayi jaati hei" as shown in promo.

I think Reporters was always meant to be a love story, at the backdrop of the news channel atleast this is what I understood from initial articles. Having said that, they should have established the leads individually, I agree to that. I always wondered how Kanir was so popular being a print journalist,doesn't ring true in the current era. And how seemlessly Kabir made the transition to TV, I don't think it is that easy..

About the marketing part, I think the show is not targetted for the regular family audience. In that case, they should have aired in some other slot, after 10:00 pm. It would have suited the young people (students) as well the older professionals (both make and female) who tune in to TV later in the night.

Serial promised us romance with romanch. Baaghi track provided both. It still continues to be favourite track among viewers. Unfortunately when we were expecting many such cases, these days we are fed only romance, tiffs, pati patni aur dhoka stories. (Decades back, there was another serial with the same name in Doordarshan, which lifted Shekhar Suman's career from being a flop star. It relied majorly on thrilling aspect of reporting with a very thin romantic track). The current plot in reporters hardly considers its backdrop as a news channel. The current story holds, even if KKN is a perfume company instead of a news channel.

Except the Bhagi track and the sports administrator sting op, none of the cases were close to reality.. Ananya's sting ops had to be watched only after suspending belief. The same is true for Kabir in Dr. Sinha case. Bhavna shroff case was slightly better. But what disappointed me most was the abrupt ending some tracks, especially the Bhagi track. Kabir promised the bhagis that he will fight their case through media. What happened to that promise? I would have liked some follow up on that, if not a denied fallow up, at-least a discussion where Kabir asks Richa or Annaya to dig up all the cases where the oppressed villages turned into rebels against the system and do a series on it. Now the same abrupt ending happens with the arms deals case too.

Overall I get the feeling that the makers are equipped enough to do a profession based show, they lack the necessary expertise, but when it comes to dealing with human emotions, they are very very good, much better than any normal soap. Prosbbky that's why they aren't focussing on any news story (and reveal their ineptness) these days.. I totally concur with you on the perfume company vs News channel theory ;).

Let me consider the individual aspects.

Memorable scenes from the serial:

A mentor at loss of words when he sees his protege in Saree, their parting hug, a doctor who pleads his love helplessly in front of her family, he does not know how to stop people moving away from him. How many years since these scenes have passed? Still the viewers remember them and the dialogues there in. LRL or KTLK gave many such memorable scenes for its viewers (KTH as well probably. Just that, I have not watched). Coming to "Reporters", how many such iconic scenes we have? I will definitely count on proposal scene. I even loved Ronnie's sweet proposal ( tum nervous mat kar ). Then of course, Kabir breaking Ananya's glasses in Madhonat track! But I can't count on too many intense romantic moments. Last week, their date and dance looked eye candy. But I don't think I would recall them after years. In my honest opinion, their fight scenes look so raw, real and intense. But romance look glossy and superficial like Karan Johar movies.

I haven't followed both the soaps you mentioned, did watch few episodes here and there of KTLK, but it didn't impress me. For me Reporters is a much better qulaity show. Memorable scene for me would be

1) Bhagi Track scene, glass breaking as well the lifting scene in the forest and not to forget the sequence where Kabir manipulates Manav.

2) Kabir drinking scene after seeing Annaya in Ronnie's arms, don't know why, but the scene touched me profoundly.

3) Proposals of both Kabir & Ronnie,

4) porch scene

5) cabin scene before Annaya leaves for the arms deal sting op.

6) Kabir - Anita scenes, both the scenes with and without Ananya was good for me
7) the green room scene, chocolate and hug

Date wasn't memorable for me.

Less of gestures, symbolism:

There need not be any words, only gestures would do. How do we recognise our colleagues that they have fallen in love? When they start paying attention to detail of the other which nobody noticed. Just imagine, Kabir forgets to bring an important file before board meeting. Ananya notices it before anybody and brings it for him at the right time. His appreciates her in his eyes. This would have raised many eyebrows. First of all, how did Ananya come to know? Second, why Kabir did not thank her formally. This could have looked better than ILUs indifferent languages. But this is my personal opinion.

I think we don't get such subtle romance because they want to highlight the difference in expectation, Annaya wants some definite gestures, their love has not been shown to devop into a mature phase yet, Kanir going as Bhadresh Kutty is one such silent gesture, but somewhere it got lost in the stupidity of the track and also because we didn't get any acknowledgment of the same from Annaya, another abrupt ending,

I consider Isharas looks more romantic on screen than words (like how we loved texting scene in initial days). But in this serial, romantic scenes are very vocal. Exception like Baingan ka Barta scene exists. Let's imagine, they had a serious fight. Afterwards Ananya suddenly pops into Kabir's house. Both eat together, watch TV together, steal glances, but not speak with each other for two hours. At the end Ananya says, she needs to go. Kabir says "abhi?" Then realises it is getting late and drops her. There may not be any words exchanged, but that would have been so reassuring for us.

Again, to show such scenes, they need to be in a secured, balanced relationship, but their relationship is still in budding stage. Having said that, I am tired of this tantrum - pacification scenerio, too many in the last one month, can we have an end to it? Then only the love could move to next phase.

Conflict of ethics with corporate culture:

We all tend to believe, though Kabir presents himself to the world as business minded, he is actually untouched by corporate culture. What are the instances? When he went to meet the orphan kids. But I never saw any cynicism whenever he flirted with Malavika or other women. I never saw him feeling for commoner's problem like his mentor Panditji did. I wanted to see a raw reporter with his ethics intact under the shade of sophisticated Kabir Sharma. Unfortunately I did not.

Totally agree. And I wanted a professional conflict between Kanir and Ananya after they hitched up, about how a particular story should be presented. Kabir, for all his thirst for truth, is more practical when it comes to news. He wants to package it in a way that sells best, but Annaya is more sensitive and idealistic . I would have liked to see them locking horns over such difference. Such conflict would have been a great watch instead of the current tantrums and MUs.

Human interest stories:

I remember Nalini Singh's programme "Hello Zindagi", which I rate over "Satyameva Jayate". She was not asking victims to come to the studio, instead she went to their villages and interviewed them. Sometimes victim's face was not shown as well (may be for protection, or it helped in open revelation). Ananya's human interest stories had much more power in showing social underbellies than just interviewing a guy who is disappointed in love.

While covering them, if she comes under government wrath, how Kabir would protect her, would have been thrilling to watch rather than him protecting her from Shreya.

Totally agree!! The human interests stories shown are so lame, no hard hitting real issue. And what you said about Kabir going out of the way to protect her, PERFECT.

Reporter's helplessness:

When I was a kid, when I did not know what journalism was, the morning local radio used to sponsored a program. The radio programme anchors (they probably were not trained journalists) meet the people who were deprived of privileges government promised them and listen to their demands and broadcast their condition. Every time I used to be shaken, when the victims pleaded with radio guys to "do something". My school teacher used to be angry with these guys for not doing anything for them! This is after the media people repeatedly saying, "they are only portal". Finally, the local radio raised to the next level, where they started interviewing the concerned government officials and broadcasting their interview as well. I don't remember, whether it brought any change in people's life. But it showed people's despair to cling to any support and reporter's helplessness.

I wanted to see Kabir's helplessness, despite being a powerful and popular person (not just in front of Shreya!). If the show is ending, I would like to see such conflict in Kabir's mind. Should one continue with their job in which are best at, or should one try a different unknown route to make an impact? This at least would leave us with some hope, Kabir can come back on some other day.

This is similar to what I mentioned abour the Bhagi track, how you make a difference with the news you present, how you force the authorities to take note of the underlying issue and how sometimes you fall short. Such stories and portralyal would have been awesome, but I do think the makers are incapable of doing such tracks. No offence to the writers, they are doing a wonderful job in showing what is shown, and most often the human emotions and equations portrayed are very real, but they fail to bring out the real challenges a journalist faces.

Originally posted by: rrinky17

nice Review

Trp - not much worried about it. it is finite show. and Sony is not much popular channel in India. all its shows earns low TRP. only historic shows gets some good points.

it is very rare to get such good stories. Indian viewers are used to tears filled home politics shows and grand jewel wearing ladies scenes. this is the reason shows with useful content won't get attracted. most of the youngsters who are in search of these kind of shows sits and watches it in online instead of fighting with their elders at home in front of TV.

I really appreciate Reporter makers for this wonderful track. they created a reality touch in this show. not much zooming and booming sound. sticking to track without much dragging. executed well focused to contented. It is viewers tendency to drool over male or female leads. makers balanced it well. hats off to them.

Real life is not always bed of roses. we can't end all arguments with hug and kiss. something bursting out and calming down. looking away and hiding and exposing anger happens. it is all shown well.

Originally posted by: Geetha_R

Thanks for this superb review, here comes my two (or twenty 😉) cents..

Lagtaa hei, aaj kal sab ki bhaav bad rahi hei. You know what I mean. 😆

I think Reporters was always meant to be a love story, at the backdrop of the news channel atleast this is what I understood from initial articles. Having said that, they should have established the leads individually, I agree to that.

Even if it was a love story, characters could have been explored individually

About the marketing part, I think the show is not targetted for the regular family audience. In that case, they should have aired in some other slot, after 10:00 pm. It would have suited the young people (students) as well the older professionals (both make and female) who tune in to TV later in the night.

Baaghi I don't know, how they could have marketed better. All I can say is, there were some potential customers for the story, who were not aware of such a serial.

Except the Bhagi track and the sports administrator sting op, none of the cases were close to reality.. Ananya's sting ops had to be watched only after suspending belief. The same is true for Kabir in Dr. Sinha case. Bhavna shroff case was slightly better. But what disappointed me most was the abrupt ending some tracks, especially the Bhagi track. Kabir promised the bhagis that he will fight their case through media. What happened to that promise? I would have liked some follow up on that, if not a denied fallow up, at-least a discussion where Kabir asks Richa or Annaya to dig up all the cases where the oppressed villages turned into rebels against the system and do a series on it. Now the same abrupt ending happens with the arms deals case too.

aspects Agree with Baagi track. It was executed well, still left so much to desire.

I haven't followed both the soaps you mentioned, did watch few episodes here and there of KTLK, but it didn't impress me. For me Reporters is a much better qulaity show. Memorable scene for me would be

1) Bhagi Track scene, glass breaking as well the lifting scene in the forest and not to forget the sequence where Kabir manipulates Manav.

2) Kabir drinking scene after seeing Annaya in Ronnie's arms, don't know why, but the scene touched me profoundly.

3) Proposals of both Kabir & Ronnie,

4) porch scene

5) cabin scene before Annaya leaves for the arms deal sting op.

6) Kabir - Anita scenes, both the scenes with and without Ananya was good for me
7) the green room scene, chocolate and hug

Date wasn't memorable for me.

I loved all the scenes you have mentioned. But as I said, scenes I remember after a year are few. Opinions, each to their own.

I wanted a professional conflict between Kanir and Ananya after they hitched up, about how a particular story should be presented. Kabir, for all his thirst for truth, is more practical when it comes to news. He wants to package it in a way that sells best, but Annaya is more sensitive and idealistic . I would have liked to see them locking horns over such difference. Such conflict would have been a great watch instead of the current tantrums and MUs.

... they fail to bring out the real challenges a journalist faces.

Basically we wanted the makers to use their backdrop more effectively. That is the source of our discontent.