Many British and American shows air on Indian television channels long after their premiere. Despite this, a number of them have already become quite the rage among people here, thanks to the Internet.
Mohit Rao, 25, for instance, says, “I watch shows like ‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’ and ‘The Daily Show with John Stewart’ on YouTube because they are freely available, and I don’t have the patience to wait for it to come on Indian television.”
Though many download or stream sitcoms and TV dramas, talk or chat shows seem to be predominantly viewed on YouTube. Mohit explains, “Something like The Daily show can be split into ten-minute clips. But for a viewer, watching only a small snippet of a TV drama would be unsatisfying.”
Arushi Chak, a counsellor, says, “Watching your favourite shows online is just so much more convenient. I can watch whatever I want whenever I want, and at one go, without advertisement breaks.”
Suggestions made based on previous searches also help in discovering new shows.
“There are so many shows I have started watching because of YouTube suggestions. In regular TV, this is not possible,” Arushi says.
Drawing flak, yet again
The fourth season of the popular television series ‘Homeland’, aired on Star World Premier HD, has predictably attracted the same criticism that it received over the last three seasons.
The storyline of the show has been accused of portraying Islamophobia and racism, and simplifying political conflicts of the Middle East, even while creating its richly-detailed protagonists: female CIA agent Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), who has psychological issues, and flawed U.S. war hero-turned-terrorist Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis).
Critics have already reacted by stating that the first two episodes of the new season lack nuance and sensitivity.
The fourth season, set in Pakistan and Afghanistan, is about Carrie continuing her unrelenting march forward in hunting down terrorists even while trying to deal with the birth of her daughter. The first episode, ‘The Drone Queen’, takes up the issue of drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was, predictably, received with frustration.
Writing in the New York Times, Pakistani author Bina Shah says, “You look not for complete truthfulness, but for verisimilitude — the ‘appearance of being true’ — so it can give your art authenticity, credibility, believability. And, we, in Pakistan, long to be seen with a vision that at least approaches the truth.”
When the show, based on the Israeli series ‘Hatufim’, premiered in 2011, it was considered, as New Yorker magazine put it, an “anti-dote for 24”, another television series centred on a counter-terrorism agent’s fight against terrorism.
However, as the show progressed, it was accused of taking a reductionary approach, compromising on political complexities for dramatic effect.
U.S. film academician Annette Danto, who was recently in the city for a film festival, said that while she welcomes the creators’ attempt to create an empowered female protagonist, she disagrees with its understanding of the issues it deals with. “Anything other than stereotypical fantasy female must be welcomed. However, depicting conflicts with no nuance needs to be criticised.”
