Deja Vu

Watching old shows is a way of reminding ourselves that nothing ever really changes in this world

 

The more things change, the more they remain the same. I was struck anew by this thought as I began re-watching Homeland, as part of my resolution to revisit all my favourite shows to see if they still resonated with me. And even though the show premiered ten years ago, it really could have been made this year. The Americans were enmeshed in an endless, seemingly futile war in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s ISI was playing both sides before betraying the USA in a spectacular fashion, the war in Syria was raging, young impressionable Muslim girls were being brainwashed to go join the global jihad, and much more in this vein. 

 

It was almost as if the writers of the show had time travelled to the present, read all the headlines in the newspapers, and based their scripts on them. The Americans were negotiating peace with the Taliban. The refugee camps were overflowing with people fleeing the conflict in Syria. Israel was attacking Iran’s nuclear scientists with magnetic bombs.

 

That same sense of déjà vu ensued while re-watching my other all-time favourite series, The West Wing, the first season of which was released way back in 1999. But even though we are now in the third decade of a new millennium, the themes of the show still seem current. One of the earlier episodes focuses on the border tensions between India and Pakistan, with the American President, Josiah Bartlett, feeling worried about the prospect of a nuclear confrontation between the two South Asian neighbours. Season five ends with violence on the Gaza Strip, which prompts President Bartlett to try and persuade the Israeli and Palestinian leadership to come to some sort of settlement (spoiler alert: he fails!).

 

It’s much the same story with the British spy drama, Spooks, which premiered in 2002. There is an ongoing conflict with Iran, because of its nuclear ambitions, that threatens to escalate into a full-on war, with the US planning air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. The Saudis are under suspicion of being involved with or giving succor to Al-Qaeda. And, with a certain inevitability, the two nuclear neighbours, India and Pakistan, are on the brink of war (yes, again!).

 

But, in case you think this feeling of déjà vu only extends to actions dramas and involves the themes of terrorism and war, well, think again. Re-watching the early seasons of The Crown, as I wait for the latest season to be released, I was struck by the parallels between the saga of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Both Edward and Harry fell in love with and married two American divorcees, Wallis Simpson and Meghan Markle. Both couples gave up on royal life in the United Kingdom and left for foreign shores, the Windsors to France and the Sussexes to America. Both couples became immensely unpopular with the British media and public. And both seem consumed with anger and resentment at their treatment at the hands of the British royal family.

 

Last but not the least, there is that old classic, Yes Minister, and in its later incarnation, Yes Prime Minister. Even though the first episodes aired way back in 1980, the series speaks to us with an immediacy even today, with its portrayal of the general uselessness of politicians and the canny way in which they are manipulated by the bureaucrats who seem to be actually in charge. 

 

And then, of course, there are the one-liners that land with a zing even so many decades later. Here is Sir Humphrey: “Well, almost all government policy is wrong but…frightfully well carried out.” And in answer to Bernard saying, “But surely the citizens of a democracy have a right to know,” Sir Humphrey goes: “No, they have a right to be ignorant. Knowledge only means complicity in guilt; ignorance has a certain dignity.” And when Prime Minister Jim Hacker asks what he can do to continue the “run of success” of his government, Sir Humphrey replies, “Have you considered masterly inactivity?”

 

As I said, the more things change, the more they remain the same!

 

Spoiler alert!

No matter how much you hate them, there is no avoiding spoilers in this age of social media

Like much of the rest of the world, I was hooked by the TV series, Game of Thrones, from the word go. I swallowed the entire first season in one greedy gulp, rushing back home every evening to get my fill of Ned Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, Khal Drogo and the evil Lannister twins, Cersei and Ser Jaime. The wait for the second season seemed interminable and once that was done the only thing that kept me going was the thought of season three and so on...

Only now that I have started on the original books written by George RR Martin, I am beginning to wish that I hadn't seen the TV series at all. The books are a cracking read (I have finished the first in the series and am nearly through the second) but only half as much fun as they might have been now that I already know what is coming next.

It's a bit like that old chestnut. What came first: the chicken or the egg? Only in this case, the question is which one should you dip into first: the book or the TV series based on it? And there really is no good answer. Because no matter which route you choose into the story, there will be spoilers galore.

And like the President of United States – and I am guessing, most of the free world – there is nothing I hate more. (Barack Obama famously tweeted on the day that season two of House Of Cards was released on Netflix, “'No spoilers please" to his many million followers.) So, whenever a brand new show is released, I force myself to stay off social media, avert my eyes from TV reviews and magazine articles, so that some spoilsport can't spoil my fun by giving the plot away.

But no matter how vigilant I am, there is always that one annoying idiot who reveals the big surprise and ruins it all. I remember being incandescent with rage when a friend casually let drop that Brody was hanged at the end of Homeland while I was still on the first episode. (And I don't think I have been forgiven by another friend to whom I thoughtlessly revealed that Matthew Crawley dies in the Christmas special of Downton Abbey. In my defence, I thought she had seen the episode when she said she was done with the second season.)

Even as I write this, I am trying my damnedest to stay away from every article, tweet, review, or even passing mention of Breaking Bad because I haven't seen the final season and I really do want to be surprised by what everyone assures me is a super-twisty end. (So, all of you who've already seen the damn thing, do shut up until I catch up.)

But to come back to the chicken-and-egg conundrum, what should you do? Read the book and then watch the TV series? Or vice versa?

Well, speaking for myself, I would much rather begin with the book. Every time a see a new remake of Pride and Prejudice or Emma, I am ever so grateful that I read Jane Austen's original before I came to the TV version. So it is with the Inspector Lynley mysteries on TV; the Elizabeth George books are so much more nuanced than the spin-off television series. And then, there are the endless Poirot and Miss Marple remakes, which lose none of their suspense and wonder even if you have the read the original book a hundred times over.

Sometimes of course, it is the TV series that sparks off interest in the books. I read Darkly Dreaming Dexter only after watching the series. But this was so much darker than the television version (for instance, Dexter kills off Lieutenant LaGuerta in the first book itself, whereas she survives much later in the TV series) that reading it was an entirely different experience.

Actually, come to think of it, I would never have picked up a George RR Martin book if it hadn’t been for a TV series called Game of Thrones. And the loss would have been entirely mine.

57 channels and nothin’ on…

Why can’t Indian TV give us the equivalent of Homeland, Newsroom, Mad Men or Modern Family?

As you may have gathered from my occasional references to my TV-viewing habits, I am a big fan of TV shows. Offer me a choice between a Hollywood/Bollywood blockbuster and a box-set of the most recent TV series and I will always plump for the latter. And every single time I spend the evening feasting on the best Western television has to offer, I set off for bed wondering why we can't do anything half as good in India. 

Why is it that we don't have an indigenous Homeland, the cracker of a TV show that had the entire world on tenterhooks for its two-season run? Even President Barack Obama - who presumably knows a thing or two about tackling terrorism - is a fan, going so far as to invite Nick Brody (British actor Damian Lewis) to the White House for an official banquet. It's not as if we are starved of inspiration given the number of terrorist attacks that have pummeled us over the last decade or so. And yet, we don't have a single TV show that brings this alive on the small screen. The best we can do, apparently, is to have Anil Kapoor threaten a re-make of 24, the thrill-a-minute Jack Bauer series which has already run its course.

Then there's Newsroom, the Aaron Sorkin show about prime-time news programming. Despite a weak (and much too wordy) start it took off after a couple of episodes, bringing the dilemma of TV news networks home to us. How do you keep your news judgement and your integrity intact and still score in the ratings while competing with hysterical, jingoistic anchors who fall back on hype and sensationalism. This is a subject that is bound to resonate with Indian viewers given the amount of sound and fury on our prime-time news shows. And yet, there isn't a single Indian TV show that has strayed into this territory. Everyone is busy making saas-bahu serials, the tried-and-tested family melodramas that have become such a staple of entertainment programming.

But even family shows can pack a punch, as anyone who has ever watched Modern Family knows all too well. The show has wit, charm, and some of the best one-liners on offer. But it also offers us the portrait of a modern family, the jumble of trophy wife, stepfamilies, gay parents, adopted Asian baby, stay-at-home Alpha mom, klutzy dad, teenager going off the rails, nerd kids, which really shouldn't work but in some mad, out-of-control way, simply does. In its own laugh-out-loud funny way it gives us an insight into the changing landscape of American society.

And what do we have in India? Oh, we do family shows, all right. But what do they show us? A regressive, patriarchal world populated by large, joint families who live in big, imposing mansions, and spend all their time plotting and scheming against one another. The women wake up in the morning wearing full make-up, swan around in Kanjeevaram saris, brandishing their oversized mangulsutras to prove that they are truly ‘pativrata naris’. Their clothes, their jewellery, their lives, nothing has anything in common with us. It is almost as if these shows are set in a different era altogether.

Not that I have anything against different eras. I am a huge fan of Downton Abbey and Mad Men, both of which skillfully recreate a bygone world. In Downton Abbey you get the sense of a decaying Edwardian England in which the old certainties are crumbling quietly, leaving disquiet and anxiety in their wake. Mad Men evokes the New York of late 50s and early 60s, when the advertising men of Madison Avenue ruled the world and didn’t quite know how to cope with the incipient feminism in the air. Can you think of anything remotely like this on Indian TV? No, me neither. And more’s the pity.