Tandav(2021, Season 1)- Review

Tandav is a political drama centring on the controlling party of India lead by Devki Nandan (Tigmanshu Dhulia) the three time prime minister of India, en-route to win the latest election and retain his seat for the fourth time. His son Samar Pratap Singh (Saif Ali Khan) full of ambition and vigour aspires to one day take his fathers place. Devki has a lot of experience and is entrusted by his party and has very close relationship to its members, Gopal Das Munshi (Kumud Mishra) & Anuradha Kishore (Dimple Kapadia) in particular. The series takes the viewers through the wild ride that is to come after the party wins the election as expected. Along with showing the highest pedestal of politics it also delves into student politics with showcasing the student presidential election of a university in Delhi, which houses among it Shiva Shekhar (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) a student with no desire to get his hands dirty with politics, but still finds himself at the center of it. It is a tale portraying the brutal & gruelling reality of politics, its participants and the abhorring acts they choose to employ in order to fulfil their desire to be in power.

Tandav tries to capture the political scenario in India with trying to create a fictional party and its problems. Try is the word to focus on in the sentence. The writers have attempted to take the age old story of political dramas and give a modern twist to it, but miserably fail to do so. With only 9 episodes they aim to play out a dearth of stories circling the main plot. It includes number of clichéd characters of the political realm. Weather the writing was kept so rudimentary wishing it will be covered up by a star-cast or was made to look so by the same cast, can be anyone’s guess. It felt like Saif Ali Khan’s days of bad acting were behind him, with him showing his talent with roles that seemed to have been made for him. The character of Samar also looked perfect for him at first glance, but it is down-hill soon after. Sarah Jane Dias is pathetic and does an awful job portraying Samar’s wife. The music department showed such a great potential but is not at all perfectly utilized by the series to make it even a little bit better. Now a days in order to keep the entertainment raw & authentic creators keep the dialogues unfiltered, here that sense of rawness feels forced on with the strong language which simply does not suite some of the older cast members and adds to the agony of the series.

Mishra & Kapadia are somewhat bearable and well casted. Sunil Grover as the go-to man for Saif’s character is enjoyable, playing the type of role we are not used to seeing him in. The location setting and background was portrayed well by the cinematographers not giving much opportunity to complain. Lastly some of the supporting cast members and less relevant characters are very well casted and portrayed, naming them would will be a tough task owing to, as mentioned before, the dearth in the number of them.

In conclusion Tandav tries to do too much- too many actors, too many sub-plots, extreme characters, elongated dialogues & ultimately a lot of over acting. It comes nowhere near in the must –watch category of Indian series’ and is miles apart from the great content produced in the recent past. Hopefully they can make reprimands and create further seasons that can meet at least a few expectations.

Acting- 7

Casting- 8

Cinematography- 8

Dialogue- 6

Directing- 7.5

Editing & Effects- 6

Sound & Music- 8

Story- 5

Storytelling- 4.5

Rating- 6

Available on: Amazon Prime

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