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Game of Thrones (2011)
One of the best/worst show ever.
Best: right up to the point they had source material
Worst: As soon as they ran out of books
One of the best (essential) character on the show, Logic, died after season 4-5. The creators D&D (short for dumb and dumber) are apparently a couple of talent-less hacks, they hardly have anything original on their CV.
The Improvisers: Something from Nothing (2018)
Improv comedy is probably the most difficult thing to do consistently, a bad day is always around the corner.
Firstly, I'm an avid follower of Stand-up. I'm really hopeful for the future of comedy scene in India. Right now, the scene is flooded with quantity rather than quality & variety. Few have the voice and the rest are noise, and hopefully the voices will come through.
THIS SHOW:
Imrov comedy is probably the most difficult form of comedy and to get it right consistently is next to impossible. I've never been to a Improv comedy show, but I've seen my share of "Whose line is it..." and as much as I love these guys (especially Kanan, his special was good) they sucked horribly at the Improv, perhaps it wasn't their day.
I was really looking forward to see this show when it dropped on prime videos, specifically to see Kaneez perform what she has been claiming is her forte on various podcast/appearances. Sadly, her's was a lackluster/trying-too-hard performance.
The show wasn't a lot for you facial muscles, you'd chuckle a couple of times at most.
I'm still hopeful, disappointed but hopeful.
Anatomy of Awkward (2018)
"It's an amazon special, it deserves more than that" is not only the opening line, it's the review of this special.
The stand-up comedy scene in India has been booming for a while now. While the fans of the developing art-form have enormous expectation from the established and emerging artists, the scene never exploded like we all expected it to.
When a seasoned comedian like Zakir Khan fills auditoriums (stadiums even) across the country on his tour, only to be replaced in one of the only comedy reality show in this country by someone as untalented as Sajid Khan, it raises the question on the legitimacy and existence of Indian stand-up comdey.
Why is stand-up comedy is still struggling to find its audience? Why only Mumbai and Bangalore are the only cities with active comedy clubs?
You can argue that stand-up comedy is an acquired taste and its future is digital, but if you take a look at the bunch Amazon (couple of Netflix) comedy specials, how many of them you'd consider to be good enough, let alone ground breaking?
The stand-up comedians (barring a few) and the audience, both are responsible:
1. Audience:
Most of the audience who flock to stand-up shows are still getting the hang of it. They can be easily manipulated by doing cheap tricks like crowd work (*cough* Kenny *cough*) or they might not laugh at some of the most ingenius punchlines (happended in a lot of the shows I've been to).
But what is not expected from audience is to follow a trend. Trend is the polar opposite of comedy, which is about breaking the false expectations. Audience will only evolve when they leave their prejudices and expectations behind. Only then they'll hear what a comedian is truly saying.
2. Comedian:
Someone in Daniel Fernandes's podcast said that a lot of people compare him to Zakir, or ask him to do Zakir. Those people obviosly aren't getting what stand-up is, but I think there's more. Perhaps, subconsiously, they identify Zakir's voice among the rest. If you look at Indian stand-up comedians, how many of them have a voice which is original?
There's a race of RJs, VJs or anyone who could speak on stage that came rushing to cash-in when the comedy scene started. Most of the comedians (like Kautuk) belong to this race. They're here to do bollywood-karan of stand-up. The naive audience, who don't have many options, laugh at below par comedy thinking this is what comedy is.
Veteran comedians should not only teach audience by keeping the quality up, they should point out comedians doing age-old cheap comedy in the name of Stand-up.
Die Trying (2018)
What went wrong {Short Review}
Most importantly, it takes enormous collective effort and time to create any show. A lot of creative people, who could've earned more somewhere else if it was all about money, work passionately to spawn a *TING* out of thin air. That *TING* is the notification you get when their show goes online. This *TING* can get you excited even on a mundane Monday morning. These guys are magicians in their own right.
We know the stage is set, with giants like Amazon & Netflix, for these magicians to blow us away. It's only the beginning, and I know the scene will soon explode with great original content for the Indian audience bored of the age old TV shows.
That being said, lets talk about the show:
WRITING: I've read a lot of screenplays, and invariably, all good films have a good screenplay. We Indians have a penchant for "cheesy" writing, *cough* Chetan Bhagat *cough*, which seems to be the case here. I learnt in a screenwriting workshop, it takes more than a dozen of drafts to get a presentable screenplay. With this show, I think they went ahead with the first draft. The jokes fall flat, consistently. Writing also lacks "Originality", which is ironic for a show about original music.
PLOT: It's all about intention and obstacle. I can see that they want to show their music to the world, but the lack of formidable conflicts makes you uninterested in the story.
CHARACTERS: Never bought their stories and their dreams. Characters are too cartoon-y (even for a comedy), cliched, one dimensional. They came off rather shallow, than being real.
ACTING: Even though there wasn't much scope for acting, in terms of challenge and originality, performances were lukewarm. Comic timing was off in some places.
PRODUCTION VALUE: Despite being an amazon prime show, the production value is not at par with productions like TVF. They have to "up" their game.
The show never seemed to work, in pieces or as a whole. Hoping for better content.