In this edition, we have three lovely and very-different-from-each-other series – for your viewing pleasure:
- Gullak (Sony LIV, Hindi)
This is a lovely series about a family of four – the father Santosh Mishra (Jameel Khan), the mother Shanti (Geetanjali Kulkarni – we also saw her in the lovely movie Sir), the elder son Annu (Vaibhav Raj Gupta) and younger son Aman (Harsh Mayar), living in a North-Indian town and dealing with the neighbors and the ups and downs of everyday, middle-class life.
The tone is very similar to that of Panchayat – although this is in a small town, not a village. Every episode deals with some new “kissa” or quandary, and ends with a resolution, and lots of heart-warming feel-goodness about love and family. Gullak is a must-watch.
- Lovesick (Netflix, English)
Dylan, Luke and Evie are very good friends and flat-mates, and we follow them through 3 seasons of finding and losing love. Luke, a bombastic extrovert, isn’t given to too much thinking when it comes to love. Dylan loses his heart to every second girl he meets, although he hasn’t yet met the one. Evie is in love with her steady boyfriend, but something doesn’t quite feel right.
The series starts with Dylan coming to know that he’s gotten an infectious STD, and his having to call every one of his ex-girlfriends (and there are quite a few) to warn them to get tested. Each episode recounts his meeting with a girl, and also builds up the larger tale. And it is done masterfully. This is a fun, sweet, humorous watch and actually had me laughing out loud.
- Goliath (Prime, English)
Goliath stars Billy Bob Thornton as down-but-not-out lawyer Billy McBride. He no longer works in the very successful law firm he founded; in fact he is persona non grata there. He now practices law from a seedy office, and spends his evenings in a bar across from the shady hotel lodge he lives at. When he gets a chance to prosecute a case against his ex-law firm he takes it, but finds himself in more trouble than he’d bargained for.
Thornton’s character is the perfect underdog – his career’s gone down the tubes, his wife has divorced him and his daughter pities him. He’s trying to do the right thing and being beaten back by his powerful, callous enemies. This underdog drama is well-made, tightly-paced and suspenseful!
