I just watched the third and fourth season of Panchayat. And I do not like it.
The characters are complicated, not in a good way. Things aren’t good-natured – some people seem to be actually malicious. Bhushan, who used to be a useful foil in the first two seasons, has actually become a bona-fide Banarakas, wreaking havoc on the good-natured-ness of the show. He and his wife actively make mountains out of molehills, constantly complicating things and end up being bad for the sake of being bad. I used to feel that they weren’t necessarily bad, just stuck on the wrong side from Pradhan-ji and Manju Devi. But they have now been made bad characters, not just unfortunate ones. And also comes in Vidhayak-ji and subsequently, his guru, Sansad-ji – who I’m sure is going to become the overarching antagonist of later seasons.
There seems to be this trend of ever-escalating stakes, like an unsustainable, ever-increasing stock price in a capitalist economy. I yearn for the days of simple problems, like the mystery of a haunted tree, or a subtly bruised ego when Abhishek gets a chair with wheels when the Pradhan doesn’t have one, or even a dissatisfied egotistic groom. Now it’s the complicated problems of the intricacies of holding on to power at any cost, and keeping up appearances and pretending about things. Or even something as serious as people getting shot. Gone are the simple lessons from talking to a dancer about how we are all dancing to the whims of life, and in comes complicated political maneuvers about how to make someone look bad, even at the cost of cutting off electricity for longer in the village.
The character of Bhushan, even though was made unnecessarily antagonistic, was acted with skill and cunning. The actor, Durgesh Kumar, acted brilliantly and made his character absolutely believable. I believe it’s a testament to his skill that his character is playing not-an-insignificant part in prodding me to write this post.
I also do not know how to feel about Prahlad’s son, Rahul dying. It ended up being the emotional anchor for the season, defining, in more ways than one, the emotional tone for the rest of the season. While it is definitely something that could happen, it felt a bit contrived, a bit forced, jammed in there in the middle of the season. I’m not the biggest nationalist, and I personally have mixed feelings about patriotism, so this might have affected others differently than me.
I feel that the showrunners have forgotten what made this show good in the first place. Like many others, I started watching this show after the pandemic. I was personally, stuck in a place away from home, and this show brought me in touch with my roots, my heritage, in a way. And it was calm, relaxing, even playful. Now it is stressful to watch, and I can’t bear to see my favourite characters getting so twisted. I do not think all is lost though – there’s still time to bring the show back to its roots. Hopefully, the showrunners are listening to the feedback because I surely am not ready to give up on the show.