Like all guests who outstay their time, the K serials have become highly repetitive. In two ways: First, they ape their own past. So you will see that Kyunki... is caught up in a rape just as it was a few years ago when Nandini was raped. The serials also imitate their K sisters. So if Parvati returned to Kahani... radiant and refreshed (as well as much older but younger to look at) in a speedboat so Arra ra Daksha-behn sails back into Kyunki..., radiant and refreshed (older-younger) riding ditto speedboat.

Predictability can be comforting but hardly entertaining without a novelty quotient but the K serials or shows like CID (that has run forever on Sony), are monotonous and unimaginative — in other words, not entertaining. The younger generation of characters, introduced to rejuvenate the serials, has succeeded in only ageing them further. Seriously: Last calculations place Kyunki’s Baa in the 100-110 age group. That makes Tulsi and her generation close to 60. How long can leading characters of shows, our constant companions for the last seven years, be senior citizens (with all due respect to them)? Especially, since they are no Helen Mirrens?

No wonder the audience is looking at its wristwatches and wondering when they will leave. No wonder viewership is falling and will soon fall away, unless they are careful.

No wonder a new entertainment channel sounds so good.

And no wonder we have mixed reactions to a new show such as Virrudh (Sony) launched by the face that launched the K women into orbit — Smriti Irani. This Sony serial is of interest to all of us in the media business because it is about the media business. However, the lead characters are actors who have been around seven years and many more. They look overage, overweight, over the hill. We watch television for good drama — and this has the makings of one that is not about women against women — but it must be fresh, vibrant, pulsating with life. Virrudh looks rather funereal already.

... contd.