I used to write a TV review column called Small Screen for many years and everyone I met always asked me the same question: do you really watch all those shows? The short answer was: yes (and I diligently took notes in case I got amnesia like one of the characters in the shows). But soon enough Star One also succumbed to the saas-bahu’s siren call, and the channel finally shut down in 2011. Saas-bahus paratrooped into our TV screens in 2000 – and never left.įor a brief period in 2004, it seemed as if things might change, with the launch of Star One and its more modern, urban content (for example, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai). In the middle of all the fun, there were some genuinely bold, interesting ideas being explored by talented directors.īut then, about 10 years after the launch of satellite TV, the affair began turning sour.
Not everything on these channels was wonderful, but there was enough that was very good: the music countdown shows ( Philips Top Ten, I’m looking at you), comedies like Filmi Chakkar (which had Satish Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah), series like Star Bestsellers with episodes directed by Anurag Kashyap, Imtiaz Ali, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Rajkumar Hirani (goosebump-inducing names when you look at where all of them have reached today) and many others. Meanwhile, staid Doordarshan, taking cognisance of the new threat, strode into the entertainment battle, all guns blazing. Two years later, Star said goodbye to its English programming and turned 100 per cent Hindi. The early years of the affair were heady. Zee introduced us to unapologetic fun and entertainment, with serials about single working girls in the city ( Tara), reality shows such as Antakshari (a truly innovative idea), game shows, horror serials and so on.ĭoordarshan was the long-standing marriage, but this was an exciting new affair. While Doordarshan had telecast some truly excellent programmes in the 1980s, they were (mostly) earnest, literary, wholesome. In 1992 we got our first Hindi satellite channel with desi shows – Zee TV.
It was all very novel and everyone was hooked.īut The Bold & The Beautiful was foreign. It was a convoluted story starring handsome men with names like Ridge and Thorne and glamorous blonde women called Caroline and Brooke who wore earrings that could double as hubcaps. When satellite TV arrived in India in 1991, one of the first American soaps we saw was The Bold & The Beautiful (which is still playing prompting a colleague to say that it should now be called The Old & The Beautiful). It was like being seduced by a shiny new toy.