DNA: Five year leaps in shows- BALH

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.