Beginning, end, meandering middle

There ought to be a term in economicsfinance for the optimal point on the savingsinvestment curve when you decide to cut back on losses Forfeiting all investments thus far knowing the payoff if at all is so far away on the axes that it isnrsquot going to be worth itThe same word must apply to life plus time invested on desi webOTT seriesmdashfor what is life if not timeConsider the Netflix series Killer Soup Once the setup is donemdashin an attempt to be absurdist in a Hindi series set in a trilingual Tamil Nadu with the great Manoj Bajpayee in a double rolemdashnovelty starts to swiftly wear offLaws of diminishing marginal utility ie engagement for entertainment sets in by the third episode alreadyBut I stick around until the fifth or so Knowing so much attention has been paid after all Yet there are at least a couple of hours left to goWhich is the length of a full frickinrsquo feature film still And since yoursquore trained to treat this as filmmdashonce yoursquove started you must finishThis dilemma is quite different from say Rohit Shettyrsquos Indian Police Force simultaneously on Prime Videomdashso full of clicheacutes from the get go that you could just leave it on until you pass out on the couchGod knows Irsquove watched many desi series simply to put myself to sleep The Great Indian Murder Disney Hotstar Bestseller Prime Video Choona Netflixhellip Low stakes zero returnAnd thatrsquos how wersquove traditionally consumed network TV designed to encourage sloth zapping between channels over 1000episoders scripted on sets that could go on for yearsNetflix content boss Ted Sarandos tells me he had a tough time initially explaining to folks in Bombay what a NetflixOTT series was ldquoItrsquos not TV Itrsquos not film Okay a long movie thenrdquo they concurredThat explains the number of Bombay filmmakers who graduated to filming Netflix series Instead of blokes from the local TV industry at first How does a film script play out Quite simply with a beginning middle and end namely the three acts what elseWhat about a seriesmdashdemanding equal attention as a film Take Killer Soup on which I must offer no consumertake since I couldnrsquot finish itI clicked on it because itrsquos directed by Abhishek Chaubey one of Indiarsquos finest filmmakers The same reason I clicked on Raj amp DKrsquos Guns amp Gulaabs amp lots of garbage in between Or sat through Reema Kagti Zoya Akhtarrsquos Dahaad 2023 Prime VideoAs with the latter two shows Irsquom almost certain the final episode of Killer Soup is a killer Which means as for a movie therersquos the beginning initial episode setup and an end the last payoffExcept for a series therersquos a middle and a middle and a middlehellip The battle of the bulge while you soldier on for hours Unlike with films the last impression isnrsquot the lasting onemdashif yoursquove taken forever to arrive at it noIs there an ongoing torture of film scripts to fit into a series then Not when itrsquos decidedly episodic like shorts Made in Heaven Or more recently Jubilee 2023mdashsufficient material fleshed out without worrying about cliffhangersOr as recently Scoop or The Railway Men like Trial By Firemdashtightly scripted around an eventmdashor Kohrra with multiple intriguing lives before they mergeAll four on Netflix The latter two shows directed by Randeep Jha that many wouldnrsquot have heard of He didnrsquot possess a filmography to speak of before the bigticket OTT seriesJha is an unsung success story The success of shows on OTTs gets measured by the number of hours viewed by audiencesmdashrather than clicks per seDoes that audience metric actively discourage suitably edited shows of shorter durations For which therersquos always film often superior anywayAs it is everyone complains about how budgets for Indian OTTs shrank postpandemic Did boxoffice stars piling on to the medium crowd out some of the investmentsSo you must get past Shettyrsquos Indian Police Force that I probably wonrsquot or sit through Ajay Devgnrsquos Rudra 2022 Disney Hotstar that I simply couldnrsquotEither way in general writers arenrsquot paid peanuts for monkeys anymore Could it be that like executives who run streaming platforms the hiring of directorshowrunner is based on CV alone barely opening up the scenespace as yoursquod expectOnce the showrsquos a hitmdashoften even before itmdashsubsequent seasons get greenlit Itrsquos called scaling in corporate terms Sequels for safe investments simply donrsquot stop Attempting something newTherersquos a films department in law firms vetting scriptsmdashscared silly of any possible backlash from the bigbrother state and activiststrollsmdashmaking you wonder how anything gets made at allOkay thatrsquos enough for a morning rant as you wonder what desi stuff to watch tonight But thatrsquos what this is Not some open letter to Netflix Prime Video etcmdashyou do youAmong the most watched OTT shows of 2023 as per an Ormax survey were Taaza Khabar Aarya 3 Disney Hotstar Asur 2 Jio The only Indian series to feature on Netflixrsquos selfrevealed top 400 shows globally was Rana Naidu Sohellip WellMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper