Season 1 |
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Episode Guide
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 8
The pandemic has spawned a plethora of fictional stories in the OTT space related to unknown viral outbreaks and medical malpractices. The media has picked up a craze to showcase the unknown and unravel a mystery as fictional or as realistic as it can get.
The Indian media has seen a rise in stories dealing with such outbreaks and the politics attached to such incidents. The latest series to join the brigade is PI Meena.
PI Meena is an eight-episode long mystery thriller series featuring Tanya Maniktala as the titular lead Meenakshi Iyer (Meena).
The show features an ensemble cast of prominent Bengali actors like Parambrata Chatterjee and Jishu Sengupta, along with Vinay Pathak, Harsh Chhaya, Vipin Sharma and Samir Soni. The story is largely set in modern day Kolkata, with occasional set up in Littnong and neighbouring areas.
Our lead, Meena, hails from a Tamil family. But her Tamil-ness is only limited to the first couple of episodes and for a few words thrown in between. Those few words are translated immediately with a phone screen popping on screen like a sore thumb.
To date I wonder why the character was Tamil when the whole story takes place in the East. It could easily have been someone from the Eastern India heritage. Doing so would have only added more depth to the investigations, since it would have been easy to communicate with the local folks.
It all starts when Meena becomes an eye witness to a road accident of a young boy named Partho. The victim passes away soon after, but Meena finds something unusual about the method of investigation and decides to get her hands dirty.
Meena tells Partho’s mother that private investigation is illegal in India, but the whole series is centred around the investigation. So, whatever Meena and her colleagues are doing, what should that be called? Because it is definitely not just security consulting when you tail people, break into places and also record or tap into calls without consent or permission!
Tanya Maniktala, whom we have seen earlier in celebrated shows like A Suitable Boy, misses the mark in PI Meena. She gives her best to the lacklustre screenplay but the writing falls short to chalk up to a decent thriller.
It has its moments which make you wonder and think, but then those are taken away by poorly written scenes following soon after. The rest of the cast is well known in the media for their memorable performances, but even they did not manage to bring up the tension needed in the story because of the poor material provided for them. Certain scenes honestly felt quite ridiculous.
Just when you think that you (and the characters) are on a cusp of finding out where the whole charade started from, something else just pops up that takes away your attention from the main story. The scenes also shift haphazardly which take one’s attention away from an indulgent and engaging visual experience.
Overall, PI Meena packed quite the potential from the start. But one can’t help but feel that the writers lost the plot as the story progresses. Sure, the narrative seemed to flow well, but the scenes and the dialogue lack in comparison to what could have been a water-tight script with a plausible open ending.
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Verdict - 4/10
4/10