BOTTOM LINE
Template Story, Okayish Legal Drama
PLATFORM
ZEE5
RUNTIME
3Hrs 17 Mins| 7 Episodes
What Is the Show About?
It has been more than a decade since Parashuram fought a legal battle. His law student son considers him a failure. Prompted by his junior Vedha’s insistence, he takes up the case of Narayana, a father who immolated himself on the court premises when neither the police nor lawyers paid heed to his complaint about his missing daughter, Sameera. Will Parashuram be able to trace Sameera’s whereabouts?
Performances
Srikanth’s casting works for the show, as it is hard to look beyond the veteran to play a middle-class, middle-aged man who is low on morale and doing everything he can to earn it back. Yet he is still not the magnetic performer with an appealing screen presence to help you look beyond the show’s flaws.
Mukesh Rishi is a safe, predictable choice to essay a soft-villain role. He is just about okay, partly because of the one-dimensional character. 30 Weds 21 girl Ananya Sharma makes her presence felt in a good supporting role, and OTT’s favourite child Snehal Kamat passes muster.
Analysis
ZEE5’s latest Telugu show, Objection My Lord, starring Srikanth, Ananya Sharma, and Mukesh Rishi in the lead roles, is the official remake of the platform’s popular Tamil series Sattamum Needhiyum. The show deals with an underdog, middle-aged lawyer’s return to duty after a sabbatical and his fight to deliver justice to a man who killed himself following a futile effort to find his abducted daughter.
Objection My Lord stays true to the familiar template of a legal drama. An underdog lawyer fights an uphill battle against a mighty opponent to reclaim his worth. It is also yet another story of a man making a hero out of himself to ensure the safety of a victimised woman. What’s so unique about it? The complainant is no longer alive and had only recently returned after spending 18 years in a mental asylum.
What gives the premise emotional heft? It is a story about a father’s search for his estranged daughter, whom he has never met. Their reunion would always remain an unfulfilled wish. Yet why are bigger forces at play, obstructing Parashuram’s seemingly straightforward case? As Parashuram sets out to establish the missing links, he’s challenged at every step, which still cannot crush his resolve.
That old-fashioned grit of an unwavering, un-flamboyant protagonist, who feels he is beyond his prime and has almost given up on himself, is the show’s lifeline. The boundaries of the characters are drawn clearly. Viswanath is the powerful, high-profile advocate who fights for the filthy rich. Parashuram is the embodiment of the powerless, marginalised lot. He means well but cannot do much beyond it.
Parashuram’s rebellious junior, Vedha, is the wind beneath his wings, at least with Narayana’s case. Parashuram and Vedha are thrown into deep waters at every opportunity but overcome their limitations through their street smartness. The former suffers a panic attack in the middle of an argument, is caught in a brothel and sees witnesses turning hostile. You sympathise with him and are also impressed at the same time.
However, the goodwill around the show is largely because of the lawyer’s understated quality and little else. While the basic idea behind the story is effective, the sluggish, dull narration spoils the fun. Even though the theme is universal and has the potential to be adapted across languages, the repetitive attempts to paint a woman as a victim who is both tormented and protected by a man feel quite outdated.
Though one can make the counter-argument that Vedha, who assists Parashuram, is also fighting the case, the show makes it quite clear that the ultimate glory rests with the man. There is absolutely no attempt to give the story a contemporary touch. The writing is painstakingly plain and ordinary, devoid of much nuance in either the gender debate or the courtroom arguments.
Even in terms of performances, there is little to distract us from its 80s and 90s Doordarshan soap-style storytelling. If something stays with you, it is the joy of a man who did not have the basics, respect or empathy from his family or colleagues at work, winning back everything in the end.
Objection My Lord is an old-school legal drama with an equally old-school treatment. There is nothing alarmingly bad nor spectacularly great about it. It is intermittently boring and engaging, doing enough to be tolerable. Nothing more, nothing less.
Music and Other Departments?
The music, by Arun Chiluveru, is quite ordinary. The occasional song hardly makes any difference to the proceedings. The limitations in the execution and resources truly reflect in the cinematography and the patchy production design. There is hardly any visual appeal to write home about. The average 25 to 35-minute runtime for each episode ensures easy viewing, even if it has no standout quality.
Highlights?
Parashuram’s characterisation (played by Srikanth)
Generally tolerable
Few challenges thrown at Parashuram during the case
Drawbacks?
Dull, old-fashioned execution
Unoriginal premise
Lacks any standout quality across most departments
Did I Enjoy It?
I could just complete it. So maybe one could term it a mildly engaging one-time watch.
Will You Recommend It?
If you enjoy simple, straightforward template legal dramas with 90s-style narration
Objection My Lord ZEE5 Webseries Reviewed by M9 News
