Every once in a while there comes a show that realigns the contours of entertainment. A show that redefines the plane of artistic brilliance and creativity. Four More Shots Please! Is not that show.
The show was projected as an exclusive female project and hence no one had any illusions regarding what the story line would be. The trailers laid to rest any remaining doubts. I finished the entire season this weekend not because it induced binge watching, but because I did not want to write a review without fully exposing myself to the ordeal.
The show basically chronicles the adventures and misadventures of four young women living in Mumbai, as they wade through troubled waters infested with a plethora of personal, professional and mostly silly issues.
All the characters in the show are copybook stereotypes with no depth whatsoever. Imagination and detailing are conspicuously absent. The script is poorly written and the direction is equally bad.
The dialogue in turn is ordinary and drab. There is no humour except for some poor jokes that are even more poorly delivered by the actors on screen. The acting ranges from medicore ( Sayani Gupta) to horrendous ( Bani J). While, no one ever presumed that the actors in the series were seasoned method actors, the expectations were inflated given the hype created around the show.
Prateek Babbar makes the sound department look bad, for every time he speaks in English, one cannot understand a word he is saying. Instead of creating relatable characters who are imperfect and believable, we have here finely chiseled individuals who smack of superficiality.
The director very poorly oversells feminism and women empowerment by adopting all the hashtags and buzz words around, and manipulatively inserting scenes and injecting messages that are ridiculous. As the season progresses one can clearly make out that all the protagonists are unprofessional and entitled individuals who have not yet matured despite their contempt for other immature individuals.
The show bears an uncanny resemblance to most American sitcoms that you may have seen and all the sets and locations are designed in such a way to pass off Mumbai as an American city. I couldn't help stare with wondrous eyes at the plush and posh looking "houses" (yes, houses not flats) where almost all the characters live. It now seems most of my Mumbai based friends are living in indigence.
The background music is pretentious and does little to redeem the show.
All in all, the show doles out a liberal helping of mediocre content and hopes to cash on popularly trending themes that are transient in nature and hollow in body. Not looking forward to season 2.
