| It's also a long-standing argument between television production houses and viewers. While most audiences end up cribbing about shoddy scripts and unrealistic characters in TV serials, those involved in the making emphasise that they only obey what viewers demand. |
| A scriptwriter from Balaji House once told me, "People who crib about our brand of serials are the first ones to watch them. And once an episode is over, they conveniently announce, 'Why on earth do people watch all this?' Don't watch it if you don't want to." |
| Love it or hate it, Indian television is one huge gunny bag offering a mix that people can consider good, bad or ugly. Sometime last week, another channel was crammed into this over-flowing sack. |
| Called 9X, it's a channel offering a range of sitcoms and programmes with music and news in the pipeline too. So, is 9X a hit or a miss? It may be too early to call it a hit but don't call it a miss. |
| While there's hardly been any change in the existing general entertainment channels (most usually end up only sprucing their logos once in three years) and new serials begin to look trite within moments, 9X, on its part, looks refreshing. It sits like a brand new dress in a wardrobe which is overflowing with trendy clothes that eventually fade with time. |
| Though the channel hasn't bid adieu to kitchen sink dramas, it seems to be measured in its approach. The emphasis so far has been on light-hearted dramas. |
| Balaji, for instance, is doing a show called Kahe Na Kahe, which revolves around a 20 year old girl who, besides studying, is working with a marriage bureau. While the main character still needs to sink into her character, the serial, on the whole, looks promising. Then there's Jamegijodi.com which looks at the classic issue of arranged marriage vs love marriage. |
| But the show that had me in splits was Dhak Dhak in Dubai, orbiting around a young Gujarati girl and her craze to marry a Punjabi lad. "Do you remember any Gujarati hero in the film industry?" she questions her friend, who is obviously confused with her preference for Punjabis. "Sanjeev Kumar "" and he was ages ago." |
| But if there's one serial that 9X is promoting aggressively, it is Mere Apne, which also marks the debut of veteran actor Vinod Khanna on the small screen. He's paired opposite Smriti Z Irani and the plot is set in Benaras, revolving around family values set by a strict patriarch. The production quality of this show so far looks superlative. |
| Interestingly, like most other channels which borrow heavily from Indian films ("Sometimes, I take plots of serials from my dad's films," Ekta Kapoor, said to me in an interview), 9X ends up doing the same. |
| The mannerisms of a character in Dhak Dhak in Dubai is similar to that of Boman Irani in Munnabhai MBBS. The look of Benaras in Mere Apne reminds you of leftover scraps from film director Pradeep Sarkar's film, Laaga Chunari Mein Daag. |
| Jamegijodi.com reminded me of director Revathi's film Mitr "" My Friend, while in another serial on 9X, a scene was a poor replica of Karan Johar's Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. |
| The verdict will be clearer only if 9X sticks to original plots and storylines of its serials and doesn't dive into the TRP trap. That will be the real test. |
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