THE OTHERS - OTT convoluted plot, lazy screenplay = DISASTER

Weekly Musings

Disclaimer - This is the OTHERS thread meant for non fans & non bashers. Those who are too sensitive to criticism or too hateful towards the show enter at your own risk.

This is safe for pregnant women, kids, folks with weak heart.

So after days & weeks of hullabaloo, media blitzkrieg, buzz, noise, controversy, twitter slug fest finally IPKKND Season 3 is up & running on the idiot box.

2 weeks, 10 episodes & I am still ruing my decision. I for one never felt so emotionally attached to the brand, actors. Hell at the risk of blasphemy let me confess that I am not even a fan of Rabbe ve. I hated it since it used to invariably play during the trip-fall-catch-eyelock-chest heaving routine. So for me it was starting on a clean slate. I wanted to give this a chance. My reasons:

1. I like I HATE U - I HATE U love stories.
2. I like Barun as AYM
3. Gul maiyya's shows are always promising in the initial months.

So i signed up if not as a starry eyed fan but as a neutral lets give it a try fan. 2 weeks down what do the makers have to show on their balance sheet. On the credit side only online buzz, publicity, Prime time slot on leading channel, Barun, Ritu. On the debit side the list is so humongous & long winding.
Lets dissect & analyze each one.

Plot

Here we are relatively on safer ground. A revenge saga. Boy witnesses his parents death. Wants to avenge & plots to bring down the family who supposedly betrayed them. Its a solid premise. A TV version of Baazigar. They achieved a casting coup by roping in Barun who excels in the role of angsty, angry, arrogant hunk who breathes fire & goes about with a swag & I DONT GIVE AN EFF attitude. But the plot is not backed by realistic backstory. Granted he wants to take revenge on the whole family but why focus only on Chandni who at that time was only 8. Here the plot moves into more shaky ground. Also even if the ML is hell bent on his Avenging crusade & wants to crush ruthlessly all & sundry in his path should he not back it up with meticulous homework, systematic planning & immaculate execution. But sadly here the ML just prowls the grounds with a grumpy expression & looks more clueless than the viewers. 1 day he openly antagonizes the schemers. Next day he tries honeyed words. One day he flirts with the FL. Next he openly warns her that he is out to destroy his family. I mean who the hell reveals his motives on day 1 to his enemies.

The ML's ploys, plots & pranks lack depth, subtlety, clarity or logic.

Dialogues

Here again they fail to forge a connect with the audience. I mean we are in the 21st century & Momzilla drones about Beti gar ki izzat & stuff. Was this show not meant to be hatke & not TRP auntywali nautankibaaz. Then why do we have such dialogues. And dont even get me started on that Bina Dupatta ki acchi lagti ho fiasco 😡

Also hearing same kinda dialogues about Chandni, her apparent skullduggery, revenge oath is very tiresome & monotonous 🥱

Editing

Again a pain area. Though i can see a significant improvement from week 1 still miles to go. There is no logical cohesion between scenes, no continuity. The transition from 1 scene to another is still jerky & bumpy. We get 2 extremes. Either the scenes keep changing so fast that the viewers are befuddled unable to grasp what is transpiring on the screen or so slow that it makes us fidgety wanting to grab the remote.

Acting

This is where I have had the biggest disappointment. Despite his lack of PR skills, the I AM ON BREAK-I AM NOT ON BREAK fiasco & other past brain freeze moments I absolutely love Barun at his angsty, emotional, angry, arrogant best. For months he lived as ASR, made me laugh, cry, grit my teeth in anger, roll my eyes with frustration. I went through the entire emotional gamut thanks to his acting. I still cry when i watch some of his classic scenes like his breakdown in the mandir before Anji, his scream in the rain after witnessing the terrace hug. Man this guy can act. But from the time IPK3 started I am not getting that vibes from him. Where his teary eyes once made me misty eyed or his breakdown gave me goosebumps, now it absolutely does nothing. This was the guy who made me root for a misogynistic jerk like ASR. But alas I am hardly on board with Advay. The body language, the expressions, the eyes, the voice modulation everything seems a notch below his usual standards. Here I blame the director. Some actors self improvise. For eg legends like Kamalhassan, Big B to name a few. But some actors like Sharukh are out & out Director's actors. The directors bring out the best in them. Same is the case with Barun. Sadly the director is not capitalizing on his acting skills. The makers seem to be relying more on his charisma & fandom

Too early for Rabba Ve

As mentioned earlier I am NOT a fan of RV. But inserted in the right place it worked. But here where Advay clearly hates Chandni & Chandni is totally creeped out by him why the hell are they playing RV. I mean at this stage the 2 are not even physically attracted towards each other. Its too early for romance & RV at this stage of the story.

Single minded focus on revenge

Yes we get that Advay's family has been wronged. Yes he is on an avenging spree. Yes he hates the Vashists. But dont he has any other thought or work other than this. ASR had gardening. Hell even Hitler used to paint. But here Advay does nothing other than mouth dialogues about Chandu's betrayal. Why the hell did they show him with the guitar. Why no glimpses into the person who is Advay. They have almost turned him into an Arnold style terminator. No emotions or distractions. Just a robotic terminator.

No interpersonal dialogues, interactions, bonding

There are no scenes where Advay interacts with others. Agreed he has no family. But then how did he study & become rich. Dont they show Veer's bonding & love with his adopted family. So why is this missing for Advay. What about his adopted family. Has he no friends. Again the viewers have no clue about the person Advay. There is no sufficient character building. In fact this is true for all characters of the show. This is required for the audience to connect & stay emotionally invested in the characters. We are unable to root either for Advay or Chandni simply because we are unable to connect with them as actual individuals.

Costumes & Accessories

Enough said. This deserves a totally separate thread dedicated to Ms Coco Chanel Shivani Di.

I am still not done with my rant. But I will pause to catch my breath. All those faithfuls who pledged their allegiance to THE OTHERS pour in your comments. Send me your bouquets & brickbats. I will take them all ASR KI KASAM 😆😆😆

un-res

👏👏 you said it all...

I started watching this show for the exact same 3 reason you did...my love to see hate turning into true love... Barun Sobti and the subtle way GK made her previous shows. I am still holding my hopes to see a good hate-love story and that the only reason I am still around...

I started watching Sobti from his very first show... A rather dull show but his anti-hero act was nice. A very mean guy who had not justification for cheating the heroine but for the sake of property... Then I saw him a confused lovable brat...wasnt my type of love story so moved on ...
Then he was ASR... mean ruthless angry ... I loved to hate him. In spite of all his utter dis-respectful stand towards the FL, I fell for ASR. Coz he had shades ... He loved his sister to bits... He loved his mother so much that he took up gardening to feel close to his mom... He loved his brother... respected his Nani... fought with her on principles ... pampered his Mami... Sobti played all this to perfection...Made us mad at him but not for long.

But then at some point he lost the focus... I wasnt all that happy with his PR skills but I dont know what happened behind the scenes so eventually I got over it.

Now when he was finally coming back, with a hate story that to with revenge!!! I was sold!! Waited for so long with so much expectation ... But was devastated after first episode Now you see, I watch a lot of movies from my regional language which I honestly believe is the flag bearer of realistic commercial movie in India now. So I always knew Sobti or any of these actors were not gonna blow my mind with their acting skill...not with the kind of production value of TV. So I wasnt expecting any magic ... but quality of editing, screenplay, direction, music, costume were all...each one was equally disaster...

Story was the only thing I was interested after day one ... but here again they spoiled it with bad story telling ... As you said...who revel their true indention to enemy? Any that part of blaming heroine...I tried to understand it from an emotional betryal point of view...you knwo he blames her coz he trusted her and his teenage heart couldnt stand her betrayal ... but with such poor character building I couldn't root for Advay too long ...who is he? What is his thought process? Why the hell should I like him?

And the fact that he is anti-hero...something that everyone keeps bringing up to justify... Even though I agree with the lack of morality of dupatta buring scene, I wasnt all that irritated by it. But my problem is that, if they can show him being bad enoughto do that, why cant he be evil enough to use Chandini to get his revenge on her family? Instead he is shown to hold grudge against a 8 year old girl and focus all this anger on her, blaming her for his parents death... by doing this they are clearing his name for all the horrible things he does to her...

So basically they dont want an anti-hero ... they dont want their hero to be mean, manipulative and un apologetic... they want to justify his atrocities with a reason that she did this to him... rather than he using her for his revenge. I know we would hate him more in the other case, but at least that would make him a real character ...

my rant is going to never end ...😆 i am not evening bothering about the production value or logic involved ...another day!!!

Nice post !

Originally posted by: ranjitha

Nice post !

Tehrav - a big big thingy which is royally missing in this show. When will you FEEL something for the character ? When the scene is poignant, subtle with less or no ear hurting bg music and enough time given for the actors to EMOTE. Here they have a formula... 5 mins for lipstick ki kasam, 2 mins for Quilt jacket waale mausajee, 3 mins for Indrani, 4 mins of irritating '100% vashisht' , 2 mins for ASR monologue, 1 min of Dev chant and 5 mins of Rabba Ve...

Most people have no problem, but I have big big problem with the usage of Rabba ve... That tune has a meaning, and that meaning nowhere fits in IPK3. For that matter, no bg music used in the show till today has matched the scene 😆

Yes, Barun CAN act, but he is a goofy kid who needs a strict teacher to hot a cane and make him do his job. I remember an old interview of Akshay Kumar where he talked about Priyadarshan's direction. He said that Priyan did not take a minute to analyze the shot scene. Even before the actors could come out of the zone, Priyan would move to his next scene. I am not comparing Priyan to cluless IPK3 director, but imagine Barun acting for Priyan.. He would be lost. The same is the case here. Personally, I am not totally disappointed. I can actually see the actor behind that over grown beard, but I haven't seen a scene where I wet 'Ahhh!!!'. I had that feeling while watching Tanhaiyaan. Although that show is no masterpiece, some scenes were directed well, that gave him the scope to act. Even in IPK3, I have seen a far more matured Barun and I can also see how his approach has changed for certain scenes, but if the role doesnt have a graph what will motivate an actor to PERFORM ? ASR had multiple shades. He was brutal to the world, but soft to Anjali. His attraction turned love overpowered his hate for Khushi, but here its all monotonous... I am sure his role will change over time and at least for now I have the patience to wait.

Shivani is a great find, but that's not enough. Her expressions are pretty much constant.. One expression for ASR and one for the sisters... But its her fist big show, that comes with a lot of baggage, so hopefully she will come to her own in a few days.

Ensemble cast: Because I watch it online, I have the privilege to skip all scenes of bro and sisters, but unfortunately TRP aunties have to watch for all 20 minutes... The ensemble cast has to perform better. The biggest example of this is Yeh Rishta.. Both leads left the show and yet it's still in Top 10 and probably performing better. Although we can credit the new leads for it, the show has never been famous just for Chemistry. IPK also had this issue and IPK3 has too, in a big way !

Enough said for the week 😆

THIS! I completely agree. Where is the character building. I want to see different shades of Advay his evil side, his smirky sarcastic side, his loving side, his temper, his tears, his pain, his joy. Here its too 1 dimensional 🥱

Originally posted by: ranjitha

Nice post !

Tehrav - a big big thingy which is royally missing in this show. When will you FEEL something for the character ? When the scene is poignant, subtle with less or no ear hurting bg music and enough time given for the actors to EMOTE. Here they have a formula... 5 mins for lipstick ki kasam, 2 mins for Quilt jacket waale mausajee, 3 mins for Indrani, 4 mins of irritating '100% vashisht' , 2 mins for ASR monologue, 1 min of Dev chant and 5 mins of Rabba Ve...

Most people have no problem, but I have big big problem with the usage of Rabba ve... That tune has a meaning, and that meaning nowhere fits in IPK3. For that matter, no bg music used in the show till today has matched the scene 😆

Yes, Barun CAN act, but he is a goofy kid who needs a strict teacher to hot a cane and make him do his job. I remember an old interview of Akshay Kumar where he talked about Priyadarshan's direction. He said that Priyan did not take a minute to analyze the shot scene. Even before the actors could come out of the zone, Priyan would move to his next scene. I am not comparing Priyan to cluless IPK3 director, but imagine Barun acting for Priyan.. He would be lost. The same is the case here. Personally, I am not totally disappointed. I can actually see the actor behind that over grown beard, but I haven't seen a scene where I wet 'Ahhh!!!'. I had that feeling while watching Tanhaiyaan. Although that show is no masterpiece, some scenes were directed well, that gave him the scope to act. Even in IPK3, I have seen a far more matured Barun and I can also see how his approach has changed for certain scenes, but if the role doesnt have a graph what will motivate an actor to PERFORM ? ASR had multiple shades. He was brutal to the world, but soft to Anjali. His attraction turned love overpowered his hate for Khushi, but here its all monotonous... I am sure his role will change over time and at least for now I have the patience to wait.

Shivani is a great find, but that's not enough. Her expressions are pretty much constant.. One expression for ASR and one for the sisters... But its her fist big show, that comes with a lot of baggage, so hopefully she will come to her own in a few days.

Ensemble cast: Because I watch it online, I have the privilege to skip all scenes of bro and sisters, but unfortunately TRP aunties have to watch for all 20 minutes... The ensemble cast has to perform better. The biggest example of this is Yeh Rishta.. Both leads left the show and yet it's still in Top 10 and probably performing better. Although we can credit the new leads for it, the show has never been famous just for Chemistry. IPK also had this issue and IPK3 has too, in a big way !

Enough said for the week 😆

When we have director like aman what can u expect,he z hell bent on avenging chandani becoz he has to rabba ve her.We will get to see different shades of advay I am sure abt this but plzz change the director gul.Waise harneet has been writing this show for one year.

WAAT IZZ HAPPENING. More than 50 people signed up for THE OTHERS but abhi koyi nahin dikh raha hai.

Remember the sisterhood folks 😉

Originally posted by: hina11

When we have director like aman what can u expect,he z hell bent on avenging chandani becoz he has to rabba ve her.We will get to see different shades of advay I am sure abt this but plzz change the director gul.Waise harneet has been writing this show for one year.

He took 1 yr to come with up with THIS 😲 Itne time mein tho yahan IF junta ek poori FF likh dete hain woh bhi beautiful & intense wali 😕

Well I'm a sarun fan but when I say barun is not up to his standard some people think we state this as hate. But leave everything apart I love Barun sobthi in dark shade. In DMG he was like waw. Talk walk face full treat to what specially dark role. But here Barun sobthi is there but not with his acting skill

Originally posted by: mpk2011

Ranju! is that u ??