It is a sea of endless dreams. My tortoises, jump into it and find out your dreams
There was a time when TVF was well known for its anti-establishment and brave acts of standing against the big commercial sector of any field. This is still the case but with recent direction that the TVF is taking of; to work with big brands and taking sponsorships. Which often result in many “conflicts of interests” – TVF is destined to make some errors. Let it be very clear that the quality of main content is still at its peak but what is surrounding your core screenplay does matter.
Starting off with the episode it starts nicely by giving a narrative twist and turning the main trailer of the show on its head. We start off with an amazing insight in what the Indian Civil Services exam is actually about; with a very pragmatic outlook from one of our core cast SK/Neeli Batti (Abhilash Thapliyal), a by-the-books person who likes to write and establishing the locality of Old Rajinder Nagar with an utmost sincerity of a character in its famous beauty of morning (dilli ki subah). However, anyone on ground will give you a hard reality check on what exactly is “IAS preparation ka mecca” Old Rajinder Nagar or Mukherjee Nagar in Delhi. Our protagonist Abhilash (Naveen Kasturia) is written to be relatable for many youngsters and has a mystery surrounding him and other member of his trio which include Guri (Shivankit).
In first episode we are thrown into a question which has haunted almost every civil aspirant in starting his journey, and that is to choose a good enough optional. Now, the answer for it is focused upon and searched for the entirety of episode patiently before the charming Sandeep (Sunny Hinduja) comes aboard with an answer which was the most straightforward but yet the aspirants wanted to hear it with an empathetic and assuring figure, which Sunny plays efficiently and beautifully. The character also obviously raises some flags around its foreshadowed misfortunes in coming episode possibly with its beautiful use of subtext.
Now, comes the branding part of Aspirants as a show. When filmmakers say that there is a fine line between gathering funds to make your film and selling your voice completely to the sponsors to become a mouthpiece for them – they are not playing around. This is exactly what happens with TVF Aspirants and their sponsors Unacademy, India’s largest online education corporation. This isn’t to vilify Unacademy or TVF, it’s to point focus into the direction that there are more than 6 accounts where the show plugged in Unacademy’s branding and this has been going for almost half of their recent shows before becoming a complete monster here. With the sponsorship it also seems like the show was only made to target Unacademy’s potential customers instead of getting sponsorship after the screenplay came in. About the script, many times it feels like 30+ year old people who never cleared their attempts imagining what the current scenario around civil preparations is – hence, its very disjointed at times.
Well after all of it I can still say that the original TVF aesthetics and fingerprints are here too indeed which are enough to make anyone keep watching this show, also I being a delhite is always famished for good cinema to capture its beauty and neighborhood. You can catch it on official TVF Youtube channel:
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