While the love for comic books and related T.V. shows seems to be a part of childhood memories for most of the people, for Vaishnavi Prasad, a travel writer, it creates a world of fascination taking her away from reality. Since T.V. series offer that continuity to her, it keeps her hooked to the unreal world, which she cannot live in real life. Superheroes have been a part of the small screen ever since the 1950s, but the future for comic-based shows seems brighter than ever with most of them going on for another season and getting spin-offs in near future.
Daredevil , which released on April 10, was green lit for a second season within 11 days of its release and its spin-off Daredevil AKA Jessica Jones , will also be aired later this year. On the other hand, Arrow , which has a steady viewership since the last three seasons, has been renewed for a fourth season. Its immense fan following lead to a spin-off, Flash , which premiered later last year and a second spin-off, Legends of Tomorrow , is also in development. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D ., whose second season ended last month, was developed post the success of the film Marvel’s The Avengers .
However, T.V. buffs like Lakshita Vaishnu, an engineering graduate, prefer T.V. series over movies. “A movie cannot give all the information in two-and-a-half hours and has to most often go for a sequel. But in case of T.V. shows, you keep on getting small doses of the story every now and then, which keeps you engrossed,” she said.
Office comes to a close
As these things go, serials simply go on and on, at least on Tamil tube. So a serial getting over is actually a matter of wonder for most of the core audience for these serials.
The average lifespan is about three years and several 1000s of episodes. So it did come as a mild surprise that Office, a soap on Vijay TV came to an end in less than two years, on June 5, this year. The show launched in March 2013, Monday to Friday, with a theme not quite seen in the Tamil screen, at least in the way it approached the interactions among a bunch of youths in an IT office.
The main plot revolved around the relationship between Raji and Karthik, played by Shruti and Karthik, and sometimes that expanded to include colleague Vishnu, and his love interests from time to time.
Directed by Ram Vinayak, it had very good scripting, especially for the big boss at the office, Viswanathan. Very soon, fans sprung up for this serial and nearly each of the characters, the more complex the plot got, the viewers complained that it was turning out to be yet another love story. And then another group pointed out that there were neither evil scheming villainous mothers-in-law or nor was the progression implausible, as in some other serials.
There was much debate about the concluding episode, where people expected a grand reunion of the estranged Raji and Karthik. Some fans even got on social media expressing surprise at the way the show’s finale played out. At 562 episodes, Office is probably the shortest mega serial in recent times on Tamil TV. Fan groups now want the cast to work together again.
(Reporting by Ramya Kannan and Yesha Kotak)
