What Is the Story About?
MX Player’s Aashram Season 3 picks up the story from where the previous two seasons left off. Baba Nirala (Bobby Deol) is a petty criminal turned godman, who rules over his fake spiritual fiefdom with impunity. He carries on with his sleazy activities – a flourishing drugs trade, political manoeuvring and horse-trading, sexual exploitation of female devotees, unexplained deaths in the Aashram – all in the guise of dubious sainthood. A runaway devotee Pammi (Aaditi Pohankar) threatens to upset his applecart. Will the Baba be able to fight off this latest threat?
Performances?
Bobby Deol manages to charm as Baba Nirala, despite the outright black role he’s playing in the series. The character is getting decidedly one-note though, with no scope for growth in its arc. The writers need to jangle themselves awake and do something drastic with Baba Nirala’s character arc if they want to sustain interest down the line. Ditto with Chandan Roy Sanyal‘s Bhopa. Both actors excel in their roles, but the devoid-of-nuances characters let them down.
Aaditi Pohankar, as Pammi, gets no leeway to display her acting prowess this season. Her character is caught in an endless loop of cat and mouse chases with the police, with the story barely moving forward. Anupriya Goenka realises early on that there’s no meat in her role, and bids goodbye to the series midway. Darshan Kumaar and Rajeev Siddhartha‘s Ujagar and Akki go round and round in circles, always ending up at the same place they begin from. The actors make the best of the utterly boring roles they’re saddled with, but the poor writing clearly doesn’t work in their favour.
Sachin Shroff as CM Hukum Singh, Esha Gupta as Sonia, and Tridha Choudhary, as Babita, are the only actors in the supporting cast who get to essay roles with some substance to them. All three do suitably well in their parts.
Analysis
Aashram Season 3 is such a colossal waste of resources – time, money and effort – that it makes us want to shed tears of frustration for all parties involved – the creators, the actors, and most of all, the producers. The story barely seems to move forward from where it ended in Season 2. Pammi is on the run, and keeps running for the entire length of the considerable runtime of the series. She has run-ins with assorted members of the police force; and each time manages to give them the slip.
Along the way, Pammi and her comrade-in-arms, Akki, do some dumb stuff like switching on their mobile phones – dead giveaways – leading the police straight to them. Of course, each time they manage to escape unharmed. The first three episodes of Aashram Season 3 are spent in the aforementioned inconsequential happenings. In between, the writers cram meaningless sequences into the plot to fill in the blank spaces – mostly to show off Baba Nirala’s sway over the government. Political horse-trading goes on like there’s no higher authority to have a say in the sleazy goings-on.
Baba Nirala demands 320 crores to allow Hukum Singh to announce ministers in his own cabinet – and the foolish man toes his line. A more far-fetched storyline than this hasn’t hit OTT platforms of late. Sensing an opportunity, Babita moves in for the kill with a plan hackneyed enough to make us lose our patience completely. All of it, though, dissolves into nothing.
Several episodes of Aashram 3 are spent building up the subplot of a minor girl exploited sexually by the Baba. Soon, that subplot goes kaput too, even as you expect something conclusive and interesting to come out of it. The entire series – all ten, 40-45 minute episodes of it – runs along similar lines. It spends time and energy building up subplots, only to have them fall by the wayside – milked and meaningless.
The bloated series comes alive only in its final two episodes. And even those amount to nothing. The storyline is back to square one at the end, with nothing of any consequence happening in the entire 7.5 hours of the show. To make matters worse, the last few minutes of Aashram Season 3 make us privy to a glimpse at the impending Season 4 of the show – leaving us horrified at the gall of producer-director Prakash Jha to take the viewer for granted so brazenly.
Honestly, Aashram 3 is an exercise in futility – ineffectual, inconsequential and repetitive. It’s also terribly boring, btw.
Music and Other Departments?
Advait Nemlekar’s background score for Aashram plays not like a crime drama, but like a mythological show such as Ramayan or Mahabharat, complete with mellow notes of the flute and sitar. It sounds quite strange, when coupled with the horrid things happening on screen. Chandan Kowli’s camerawork was quite enthralling in the beginning of the show, but is now as jaded as this new season of Aashram. Santosh Mandal’s editing is adequate.
Highlights?
None
Drawbacks?
Repetitive storyline that goes round and round in endless circles
Meaningless subplots
Far-fetched narrative
Loopholes-ridden plot
Poor writing
Did I Enjoy It?
No
Will You Recommend It?
No
Aashram Season 3 Web Series Review by Binged Bureau
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