Serial Chiller

Karoline Kamakshi review: Meena — and Tamil audiences — deserve better than this hotchpotch of ineptitude

Karoline Kamakshi, Zee5’s new web series, botches one of the world’s oldest, and perhaps most endearing buddy cop tropes.

Police Diary 2.0: Without skill or sense, the show is a mishmash of unnecessary sex, institutional violence and machoism

Police Diary 2.0, a new web-series streaming on Zee5, is the story of four police officers, led by an SP, who runs the Special Task Force.

Dubbing, subtitles and clever casting: Is the web really creating pan-India content?

Any show not watched in its original language is invariably jarring. Voices don’t match, idioms don’t work, translations are literal, but most irritatingly, when the voice language is localised and subtitles aren’t, it feels like parallel tracks of dialogue | Ranjani Krishnakumar writes in 'Serial Chiller'

Serial Chiller: Zee5's Fingertip is a highly relatable, acutely watchable series about modern Tamil lives

Fingertip, a Zee5 Original Tamil web series, captures our technology-hooked modern lives through the prism of the five deadly sins

Marmadesam: Tamil’s truly captivating nostalgia TV is coming episode-by-episode to YouTube

Adapted from Indra Soundar Rajan’s novels, by himself, directed immaculately by Naga, Marmadesam, for me, is what nostalgia television is all about.

Tamizha Tamizha: A comfortably centrist talk show where the personal doesn’t get political enough

Tamizha Tamizha is numbly centrist. It does many of the right things — but little to shake up the status quo.

Thiravam review: An earnest but mediocre and unsatisfying attempt at multi-genre fiction

An endeavour of this nature needed better actors, better locations, better action choreography and perhaps more investment. Without these, Thiravam is merely a wannabe in the age of web content, whose earnestness doesn’t compensate for its mediocrity.

Serial Chiller: Web series Auto Shankar, although engaging in parts, ultimately disappoints

There is no doubt that in the world of original web series in Tamil, Auto Shankar ups the ante. But for a form that one watches at home without the darkness of the cinema to suspend disbelief, Auto Shankar gives us a lot of time to fiddle with the phone or step away to make tea.

Serial Chiller: From family melodramas to romantic comedies, who is watching Tamil television?

One would expect that Tamil cinema's creative cousin — television — would get half as much, if not the same attention. However, there is very little conversation around Tamil television, forget any scholarly/serious intervention.

Serial Chiller: I watched mega-serials every day for two months; why I plan to continue

Mega-serials have everything that our films should have — but don’t — making them utterly delightful to watch. If only we could look beyond our cinema-tinted perspective.