P.I. Meena

Based in the city of joy Kolkata, PI Meena is helmed by Arindam Mitra and Debaloy Bhattacharya together, as a tale of a professional investigator who witnesses an accident of an unknown person in broad daylight and the consequences she faces thereafter, forms the rest of the story.

The story builds episode by episode with the help of a dark environment which sets the mood of the narration.

The series maintains a continuous pace throughout.

Some good conceptualization has been made out of Covid 19 and it has been camouflaged with a socio political angle intelligently.

Like other web series in recent times, this one too has some characters with their individual sub plots. But a major weakness of the script is that these sub plots either lack proper conclusion or few things remain unexplained even at the end.

Camera work of the series is adequate and dialogues are well written. Editing is a portion where some more or better work was required.

Debaloy Bhattacharya has directed well apart from some minor flourishes. A better version is expected out of him for the next season.

Coming down to performances- Tanya Maniktala carries the show on her shoulders ably, despite the flaws in the script. She is absolutely natural as the investigator. Her character being the central one, more dimensions to it would have made her role more impactful.

Parambrata as usual has played his part well enough as the lawyer. His track too needed some meat for having a stronger impact on the story.

Jishu Sengupta is fantastic as the doctor out of every scope he has received to perform. He shines in every scene, be it conversation with anyone else or the action sequence.

Among the rest- Vinay Pathak, Vipin Sharma, Harsh Chhaya, Samir Soni, Saurav Das, Zarina Wahab and others have played their part well. Each one of their stories needed a proper explanation which is unfortunately missing.

All in all it can be a weekend watch with not very high expectations.

As mentioned before. A better Season 2 can be expected from the talented Team of Arindam, Debaloy, Parambrata and Tanya besides others.....

Virus cannot be seen with light microscope.

A person in coma for 3 years is no longer kept on cardiac monitor.

Any microbiologist would not contaminate his own or someone's clothes with gloves he just used handling a specimen.

Surgeons in India are not MDs. They are MSs.

Once you can get over such inconvenient medical facts, there is a lot to enjoy in this layered and textured tale.

It brings a world of Kolkata and Eastern India to life. Background score and cinematography are decent.

There are several veteran actors in supporting cast but one weak point is the lead, Tanya Maniktala. She reduces the character to perpetually angry and rogue. She is angry at herself because she blames herself for her brother's coma. She is angry at the system. Unfortunately that is all we get out of her. There is no nuance. One can't help wishing that someone like Tridha Chaudhary (Ashram) or Disha Thakur (Main Monica) was cast in that role.

When you have too much money to rope in Vinay Pathak, Harsh Chhaya, Parambrata and Jishu but you forget to write a story, a disaster like PI Meena happens. From the beginning, everything about this web series is very random: like why protagonist Meenakshi Iyer is so irritating, what is Parambrata aka fraud lawyer's story and how it is related to the main plot of virus, why there is so much detailing of the newspaper house bearing nauseating resemblance to Anandabazar Patrika's office and its former editor Aveek Sarkar etc.

PI Meena is a series of phone calls people are making to each other in a world with no bluetooth. Before receiving a call, the person politely makes an announcement that they have to take the call -- thus contributing to a lot of wastage of time which the series as a whole is.

Camera work is zero like the plot. Scenes are disjointed and many are difficult to watch as there is no concept of light either.

Parambrata and Jishu are stalwarts of the Bengali film industry but PI Meena makes both of them a laughing stock -- something they don't deserve at this point of their careers. Or maybe they do for agreeing to essay such ludicrous characters.

There is no spoiler alert as nothing can spoil PI Meena more than the production itself.

The main lead actress, Taniya Maniktala doesn't have the presence and panache to really carry a whole series on her back, I had the same issue with her in the series Tooth Pari and on top of that the drudge of a screenplay doesn't do any favours. It's slow and doesn't connect well, almost feels like it has been written by someone straight out of school and lacks the know how of the emotions of real life. In a protagonists centred screenplay none of the side- characters were let to shine either.

Most of the actors' actions and acting choices felt deliberate, so, the direction was off as well (Let's not talk about so, so many technical mistakes which shouldn't happen at this level, but are always superseded when the story-telling is honest, but sadly that didn't happen either) and the edit went no where with the pacing. A flurry of images followed by a dragging close up shot... there is no beat or rhythm to it and also infested with some basic and honestly sad, technical mistakes.

It's sad to see a platform, Anazon's Prime Video, which gave us Panchayat, Aranyak, Mirzapur, Patal-lok and many more well made Indian series, falling from it's grace, settling and spending money on weak projects and creators such as these.

I Could not find a story . The Story starts with an accident .The Lead Female character who is a private detective is trying to find out the killer . She travelled n no of times without any reason. She went to the different place for investigation but what she found over there is not displayed. It looks like she just went for timepass. The Back ground music is not matching with the scene. There is no link between her boyfriend story with the main story. Except the Lead Female character remaining character performance was good .But due to weak story , it's difficult for them to do something on it. She is a private detective but does not know the basic of investigation. I would recommend her to learn from similar kind of role. It's complete waste .