What Is the Story About?
Produced by TVF for JioHotstar, Space Gen: Chandrayaan is a five-part drama tracking ISRO’s journey from the heartbreak of Chandrayaan-2 to the triumph of Chandrayaan-3. Starring Nakuul Mehta and Shriya Saran, the series follows fictionalised scientists navigating pandemic hurdles, tight budgets, and intense public pressure.
More than a technical chronicle, it’s a human-centric story of resilience and redemption. It captures the emotional grit required to overcome the 2019 failure, culminating in the historic soft landing on the lunar South Pole and celebrating India’s scientific spirit.
Performances?
Undoubtedly, Nakuul Mehta delivers his career-best performance in Space Gen: Chandrayaan. Out of all the cast members, he gets the meatiest role and does justice to his character. He gives a layered portrayal of Arjun by showcasing his trauma, deep-seated fears, vulnerabilities, and the ghosts of his past failures looming over his head. Amidst all this chaos, we also witness plenty of instances where he displays his intellectual brilliance, humanity, love for his country, and a desperate need for redemption.
Shriya Saran, as Yamini, the Project Director, brings poise and authority to the screen. However, there are times when you may feel she doesn’t look that convincing. We don’t doubt her acting abilities, but this role needed a stronger performer. Plus, her odd Hindi dubbing in some instances may restrict your ability to connect with her character emotionally.
Analysis
Helmed by Anant Singh, Space Gen: Chandrayaan right from the get-go tries hard to aim for the stars, but unfortunately crash-lands hard into the dirt.
One of the biggest negatives emerging from this latest TVF creation is that it treats audiences like children. What could have been a heart-touching, science-driven, and emotional tribute to one of our country’s most monumental scientific achievements ultimately gets reduced to an overly generic, dramatised, and melodramatic workplace drama.
This show needed more technical expertise and details about the mission, but instead, it heavily focuses on the characters’ personal life issues. As a result, we get a narrative that’s too simplistic.
The decision to use the trope of a personal tragedy from the Kargil War to justify Arjun’s scientific passion is understandable. However, it also comes dangerously close to undermining Arjun’s scientific brilliance, which, sadly, was needed far more.
The lack of invention and originality is clearly visible in Space Gen: Chandrayaan, so much for the irony of a space-drama series. One of the clearest examples of this problem is Arjun’s overall thought process while trying to locate the exact position of Chandrayaan-2.
Just watch that scene, and you will instantly think of the opening moments of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, when Cillian Murphy’s character grows increasingly intrigued by quantum mechanics, deep-diving into thoughts about particles, waves, and energy, accompanied by Ludwig Göransson’s amazing “Can You Hear the Music”. In Space Gen, this is replaced with sprinkling water drops, bubbles, and shining sunlight.
Another major grievance is the typical reliance on the “one-man hero” arc. There’s no denying that Nakuul Mehta does a wonderful job as Arjun. But we mustn’t forget that the mission was a massive collaborative effort led by brilliant scientists at ISRO and other scientific departments involved. This unnecessary “saviour complex” does significant damage to the show and undermines the collective spirit of ISRO.
The series desperately needed a more realistic, grounded, and scientific touch. Plus, with only five short episodes to cover four massive years (2019–2023), the pacing is erratic. Major events like the COVID-19 pandemic and the indigenisation of components are briefly summarised rather than explored, making the stakes feel a bit superficial.
For a show dedicated to science and celebrating ISRO’s achievements, the scenes involving science are treated with far less attention, while the scenes centred on blaming and crying are painfully dragged out.
That said, the show does offer a few positives. For instance, the editing, camera angles, and the use of split-screen frames to maintain tension, while keeping the “polished and professional” feel intact, work reasonably well.
As for character arcs, Nakuul Mehta does complete justice to his role as Arjun Verma, but his backstory involving his father’s death in the Kargil War due to a tech failure feels forced and unnecessary. A scientist’s passion for space and patriotism should be enough to steer a character like Arjun. Moreover, Shriya Saran’s character is not only poorly written but also receives very little exploration from TVF.
We all know the outcome, so how do you raise the stakes and keep the audience engaged across five episodes? TVF attempts this by manufacturing copious amounts of fake drama, including a bizarre hacking and cyber-conspiracy subplot that ultimately goes absolutely nowhere.
Overall, TVF’s Space Gen: Chandrayaan is a melodramatic five-part series that prioritises sentimental tropes over scientific depth. While Nakuul Mehta delivers a strong performance, the show suffers from a pronounced “saviour complex”, centring on a fictionalised hero rather than ISRO’s collaborative effort. It is further let down by tacky CGI, erratic pacing, and forced subplots.
Music and Other Departments?
The background score tries hard to follow what Ludwig Göransson and Hans Zimmer have achieved through their respective collaborations with Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer and Interstellar), but sadly, all we get is a poor attempt to mimic these legends’ work, which ultimately falls flat with repetitive and unoriginal cues.
Furthermore, the sound design, particularly during the space sequences, is enough to tell you how much “budget” has really gone into the series. Moreover, the show is let down by its cheap and tacky production values.
The CGI and visuals during the space sequences in Space Gen: Chandrayaan are unexciting and subpar, failing to provide the awe-inspiring scale seen in competitors like Rocket Boys. The scenes involving satellite shots and lunar surfaces are poorly executed and visually underwhelming.
Yes, we know we shouldn’t expect Christopher Nolan–level technical brilliance from a production house like TVF, but it’s genuinely hard to watch orbiters in space move like unguided, wild spaceships from retro 8-bit Nintendo games.
Other Artists?
Prakash Belawadi (Sudarshan Ramaiah) is another standout performer in Space Gen: Chandrayaan. He adds much-needed gravitas and strength to the ISRO Chief’s role, making the overall bureaucratic and scientific struggle feel genuinely emotional. He emerges as the epitome of “less is more” in this series. By keeping his performance realistic and grounded, he instantly becomes a likeable character.
Given the mammoth amount of talent Gopal Datt possesses, along with his long-standing partnership with TVF, it’s truly baffling to see how badly the makers have written his character. The man is a certified TVF staple, and yet somehow, we get a very loud, trash-talking, and borderline irritating version of Rakesh Mohanty.
If you’ve been following Datt’s career closely, you know he looks and performs best when he isn’t trying so hard. With him constantly agonising over and blasting the ISRO team for not getting the job done or for their failures, it becomes really hard to take the show seriously. Datt’s character seems to have been added to give the series more dramatic flair, but instead, it makes the show barely watchable.
Danish Sait (Jairam Shetty) is best known for his comedic performances, so seeing him play a more serious and restrained character like Jairam Shetty is a treat. He portrays the rover specialist with a sincerity that avoids his usual caricatures, though his character is sidelined in the later episodes.
The main cast, along with the rest of the performers, mostly succeed in making ISRO feel like a workplace of real people rather than just geniuses in lab coats. While the writing occasionally pushes them towards borderline extreme patriotism, the chemistry during the technical “jugaad” moments feels authentically TVF.
Highlights?
Compelling performance by Nakuul Mehta
Prakash Belawadi shines
Decent pacing with good use of split-screen frames
Drawbacks?
Over-reliance on melodrama
Overly simplistic narrative
Misplaced “One Man Hero” arc
Poor production value and CGI
Unoriginal background score
Shriya Saran’s underdeveloped and poorly written role
Did I Enjoy It?
Not really.
Will You Recommend It?
Only if you are a die-hard TVF fan!
Space Gen: Chandrayaan Web Series Review by Binged Bureau
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