BOTTOM LINE
Election Comedy Runs Out of Fuel
PLATFORM
PRIME VIDEO
RUNTIME
5 Hours (8 Episodes)
What Is the Show About?
Abhishek’s career is at risk with a case lodged against him, entangled in a political power struggle involving Pradhan and Bhushan. As Pradhan recovers from a murder attempt and launches his election campaign, Bhushan’s camp makes preemptive strikes and tries to break Pradhan’s loyalists. The election intensifies with family visits, campaign altercations, and a pre-election power outage.
Performances
Jitendra Kumar’s portrayal of Abhishek’s evolution, from a shy urban lad to a stubborn officer who knows his village inside out, is both entertaining and relatable. By now, he’s too aware of the game to commit any folly. Veterans Raghubir Yadav and Neena Gupta deliver top-class performances as the village’s power couple, staying true to the spirit of their cheeky characters.
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Faisal Malik and Chandan Arora continue to provide solid support to the leads in the roles of wise, loyal insiders. Sanvikaa’s role as Rinki, however, offers little scope for growth. The season truly belongs to Durgesh Kumar and Sunita Rajwar, who play characters that milk every opportunity the election season throws at them. Pankaj Jha does what’s expected of him, and so does Ashok Pathak.
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Analysis
Panchayat, the village dramedy whose popularity has steadily multiplied every season, in terms of a broad plot outline, charts the journey of Abhishek, from a city-bred outsider who reluctantly took his government job, to an insider who’s gradually adapted to the ways of a sleepy village and developed his loyal coterie. Its focus, in the fourth instalment, shifts to a toughly contested election.
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Abhishek, anxiously awaiting his MBA entrance results, is tense after a police case leaves his career on the edge. Meanwhile, as the polls approach, the conflicts between Pradhan and Bhushan get pettier by the moment. The drama takes stranger turns as they try to outsmart and humiliate each other, manipulating strategies in their desperation to earn public approval.
By the fourth season, there are barely any newer characters waiting to be introduced in the Panchayat universe. You precisely know how it’ll go about its business, taking a light-hearted approach while delving into local affairs. It gets a little too comfortable in its shoes, finding solace in a blossoming romance, widening rifts among village heads, and changing loyalties of the villagers.
The choice to focus an entire season on a low-stakes panchayat election is a smart one; it offers a solid hook to put various narrative threads into perspective and observe the fickle nature of human behaviour on the cusp of an election. It has all the makings of a conventional political drama – people switching sides, personal digs, freebies, leveraging a crisis for votes, election day anxiety, et al.
Though the election drama is a decent idea to give the story a new direction, it doesn’t unearth much that we haven’t already seen across earlier seasons. It feels like an excuse to dig into the leftovers of an old comfort meal, using the same ingredients, but without leaving you fully satisfied. While it remains reasonably entertaining, the magic is amiss, riding on an all-too-familiar course.
All along, it keeps dropping hints about what’s to come. It doesn’t shy away from showcasing the demerits of Manju Devi and her team in their current stint, even as it highlights the earnestness of their efforts. There are uncleaned toilets, stagnant drains left unattended; the optimism is missing. Drastic events, some intentional, some unfortunate, complicate matters further.
The writing turns too convenient and predictable, even when you account for the limited scope left to explore something new. When Rinki suggests using social media to amplify her mother’s campaign, it looks like an ideal chance to breathe new life into the narrative, but the idea is dropped far too quickly. The quirks within the family, friends, and villagers start to feel tiresome after a point.
Every subplot, from the love story to the power cut to the surprise discussion with the MP, is inexplicably tied to the elections. There’s little evolution in character arcs, the situations lack novelty, and while the plot is wafer-thin (which is still alright), the creators do everything in the book to mask the obvious flaws with an eventful screenplay.
In retrospect, Panchayat’s fall from grace was perhaps inevitable. Season 3 had already hinted at the dip. Every possible shade of the village ambience has been explored to the hilt, and the writing now struggles to find new footing. It’s a familiar challenge, the kind even the best of shows, like Gullak in its recent season, have experienced.
Keep your expectations in check as you brace for Panchayat Season 4. Apart from the entertaining performances, spontaneous dialogues, and the familiar yet enjoyable situational humour, it lacks freshness. It’s like a village you’ve fallen out of love with; you know it too well to be charmed by it anymore, but deep down, there’s still a lingering sense of nostalgia.
Music and Other Departments?
Composer Anurag Saikia plays by the book, capturing the essence of the part laidback, part chaotic nature of the village backdrop. Amitabh Singh’s cinematography, using muted colours and an earthy visual texture, delivers the goods, but it also feels like a photocopy of all the seasons put together. In terms of writing, while the dialogues have their share of sparks, the situations are devoid of novelty. The runtime gets slightly tiring towards the later episodes.
Highlights?
Good performances
Situational humour
Well-written dialogues, entertaining in parts
Drawbacks?
Predictable narrative
Lacks freshness, offers nothing new
Did I Enjoy It?
Only in parts, and the nostalgia of the earlier seasons
Will You Recommend It?
Watch it, but with lower expectations
Panchayat Season 4 OTT Series Review by M9
