Friday, December 28, 2007

Sunday, December 23, 2007

TV serials

How many of you people out there watch serials? And how many of you people run away from serials?

I have watched just one serial seriously in my life and that too i abandoned in the middle after the story became very incomprehensible. The serial was "Shanti". It used to come on DD.

To broadly classify people, there are 3 types of people in the world.

a) those who watch serials.
b) those who despise serials and run away from them.
c) those who make money out of making serials

I am not sure why i am writing this stuff. Maybe out of frustration caused due to the increasing noise pollution caused by the serials.

The basic concept in making these serials is:

  • The story should have so many twists and turns that the viewer gets totally confused.

  • The story should follow the waterfall model of evolution. So whenever TRP drops, someone is killed and a new character is introduced changing the story to make it even more complex.

  • The actors and acresses are allowed to take long vacations - the start of which is marked by the death of the character the actor/actress is playing and the return is marked by the introduction of a double role or a reincarnation of the old character.

  • The story is told in the slowest pace possible to make the serial as long as possible. some serials never end.

  • Each dialogue should be followed by at least 3 moving closeups of the actor/actress who has said the dialogue.

  • There should be constant background music - loud and unpleasant.

  • All the serials should look the same. There should not be major variations in the story and characters of the serials. This makes switching between different serials on different channels effortless mentally.

  • The story should always circle around marriage and family issues and completely ignore all other aspects of life like finance, education and totally ignore political, rural and legislative issues.



I really dont know why people watch these serials and what do they get out of it. I prefer to watch movies - max 3 hours to get a story straight and no pondering/waiting for the next part. Or play games for entertainment which also sharpen my reflexes.

And now recently there has been awards for these serials as well. Along with ads in movie halls - for some serials running on some channel.

My view of the serials is based on very less experience in watching these serials - since i cant tolerate them. Please feel free to add more regarding these serials.