Rocket Boys
SonyLIV delivered a fitting successor to its breakout show Scam 1992 in the form of this superbly crafted and engaging story of the deep friendship between two terrific minds — Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai — playing out against the cusp of war and the gradual launch of India’s atomic and space programmes. Director Abhay Pannu — who also wrote Rocket Boys — spanned 25 years in the lives of these two pioneering scientists, who shook up the worlds of science and governance and laid the groundwork for the scientific superpower India is today.
Jim Sarbh brought flair to Bhabha, Ishwak Singh was endearing as Sarabhai, with the two being ably supported by assured acts from Regina Cassandra and Saba Azad. The show’s biggest triumph lay in the fact that it pulled these brilliant men out of dusty textbooks and rendered them as flesh-and-blood characters.
Panchayat S2
Talking of feel-good, Panchayat returned with a second season which was a rare follow-up that not only lived up to the first season, but often bettered it, ending on a note that promised a third. Season 2 continued with the simple, but not simplistic, vibe of what we had loved so much in the first season, and cranked up the emotional quotient several notches. The series continued to pack in life lessons, but always with a twinkle in its eye, with every character — led by Abhishek (Jitendra Kumar), Pradhanji (Raghubir Yadav), Vikas (Chandan Roy) and Prahlad (Faisal Malik), along with a scene-stealing Neena Gupta — reminding us why we grew to love the Amazon Prime Video show in the first place. The unexpected emotional wallop at the end makes us look forward to Season 3.
Suzhal — The Vortex
Vikram Vedha duo Pushkar-Gayathri came up with this compelling thriller whose twists and turns kept the viewer invested and whose big reveal translated into a satisfying payoff. Propped up by some fine acting by the cast — led by Kathir and Aishwarya Rajesh — Suzhal, streaming on Amazon Prime Video, was both a well-made cliffhanger that integrated mythical elements and a keen look at the socio-political equations of a close-knit community in a small town.
Ghar waapsi
It dropped without any fanfare, but touched a chord instantly. A reminder of the kind of shows we grew up watching on Doordarshan, Ghar Waapsi on Disney+Hotstar had feel-good written all over it. Both relevant and relatable, this six-episode series juxtaposed the cold-bloodedness and complexity of corporate ambition with the warmth and simplicity of small-town living.
Vishal Vashishtha put in an exemplary act as the protagonist Shekhar whose return to his family after being retrenched in his big-city job makes him realise what he had been missing all along while running on the treadmill called life.
Created by Dice Media — the folks behind many a winner, including Little Things — Ghar Waapsi immediately drew the viewer in with its lovable characters and lived-in milieu.
Modern love Mumbai
Taking a leaf out of the American original (which, in turn, was drawn from the pages of The New York Times), Modern Love Mumbai had some big names — Vishal Bhardwaj to Hansal Mehta to Alankrita Shrivastava — pitching in to give us an anthology of shorts that made us break into a smile as well as shed a tear, sometimes even together. With Mumbai functioning as a character more than a backdrop, Modern Love Mumbai scored with all its stories, but we found ourselves gravitating towards Hansal’s story of same-sex love (with veteran Tanuja dropping some relevant truth bombs) and Dhruv Sehgal’s simple storytelling in I Love Thane, starring Masaba Gupta and Ritwik Bhowmik.
Guilty minds
Legal dramas are a dime-a-dozen, but Guilty Minds turned out to be a binge-worthy watch that was both entertaining and thought provoking. Well-researched, crisply written and sharply acted, Guilty Minds, streaming on Amazon Prime Video, packed in a whole lot of drama but was intelligent enough to package it in realism. Taking the action forward in this limitless world of blacks and whites and a whole lot of greys (both literal and metaphorical) were spot-on acts from Shriya Pilgaonkar and Varun Mitra whose characters’ professional dilemmas and personal demons gave both meat and meaning to the series.