Plus: Mayasabha brings the fire and fury of Andhra politics
Wednesday S2: Netflixication Of Tim Burton’s Old-School Imagination Is Too Jarring To Ignore
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| | | WEDNESDAY SEASON 2 (Part 1: the first four episodes) arrives nearly three years after the goth-deadpan teenager and her morbid adventures became the most watched Netflix show of all time. Immortalised (not a term these characters are fond of) by actress Jenna Ortega, a death-coded Wednesday Addams saved her unmerry school of outcasts, the Nevermore Academy, by cracking a murder mystery and discovering that the boy she liked is a serial-killing monster puppeted by a psychopathic botany teacher. Season 2 takes an interesting route, more or less writing the new-age popularity of the series into its storyline. It opens with a Sixth-Sense-weds-Unbreakable tribute — extra marks for that — to show that Wednesday has learnt to control her psychic powers. She returns to Nevermore for the Fall semester. Except now she’s famous — and it annoys the hell out of her. Everyone knows her, and as an aspiring writer, it gets on her numbed nerves. Get your pop culture fix on OTTplay Premium for only Rs 149 per month. Grab this limited time offer now! My problem with the first season was the dissonance between the concept of the Addams Family and the genre identity chosen by the Tim Burton-tinged series. Given the family’s playful relationship with death, gore and pain, it felt strange to buy into the chaos of Wednesday playing a super-sleuth and, you know, saving people. What is at stake, exactly? Her twisted heritage kind of reduces the meaning of danger; it’s a toy for them, and suddenly, we are supposed to care about the threat of characters dying. One of the early set pieces here again shows Wednesday and her brother casually causing a deadly road accident from their car, with the parents cackling away at their little contest. But I’m getting over this suspension of disbelief issue in Season 2, slowly and steadily. Perhaps the point is that the Addams girl who trivialises darkness is not all that immune to the emotions of losing a loved one or two. Or perhaps her sociopathic heroism is shaped by how reluctant she is to go against her own essence. | | | Mayasabha Is Controversial, Compelling & Unmissable
| Dev Katta's slow-burn series delivers plenty of political heat, writes Avad Mohammad .
| | | | | Cast: Aadhi Pinisetty, Chaitanya Rao | | | | MAYASABHA marks the return of director Deva Katta, best known for the cult classic Prasthanam . After a run of underwhelming releases, Katta makes a confident comeback with this ambitious series, inspired by the real-life trajectories of two towering Andhra Pradesh leaders — N Chandrababu Naidu and the late YS Rajasekhara Reddy.
Although Katta insists the show is a work of fiction, it traces the intertwined journeys of two young leaders whose friendship eventually gives way to fierce political rivalry. Planned as a multi-season saga, the first instalment charts their rise, laying the groundwork for the ideological and personal clashes to come. From the outset, it’s evident that Katta has invested in meticulous research. Many viewers, particularly from a younger generation, may be unfamiliar with the formative years of these political heavyweights. The series deftly explores their early lives — the motivations that drew them to politics, their family legacies, the slights that fuelled their ambitions, and the pivotal moments that shaped their careers. These threads are woven together with assurance in the opening three episodes, setting a strong foundation for the drama ahead. Continue reading. | | | The one newsletter you need to decide what to watch on any given day. Our editors pick a show, movie, or theme for you from everything that’s streaming on OTT. | | Each week, our editors pick one long-form, writerly piece that they think is worthy of your attention, and dice it into easily digestible bits for you to mull over. | | In which we invite a scholar of cinema, devotee of the moving image, to write a prose poem dedicated to their poison of choice. Expect to spend an hour on this. | | | Hindustan Media Ventures Limited,
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