Holds The Interest

indianature

I watched Season 1 of Queen in orig. Tamil audio with English subtitles on MX Player.

The disclaimer prominently proclaims this to be fiction and the Director Gautam Menon in a separate interview also asserts that it is not based on any real characters :-))) Obviously one would have to be blind not to see the striking resemblance of Ramya Krishnan to JJ oooops Shakthi, Indrajith to MGR .. er GMR and Vamsi Krishna to Sobhan Babu ... Chaitanya. Whoever did the casting did a fair job. I also recollect watching the Simi Garewal interview of JJ on DD so many years ago. This series plot pivots around the interview of Shakthi the politician by a lead TV interviewer (Lillette Dubey).

But anyway, lets treat this story as out and out fiction as the production team would have it. Episode 1 portrays Shakthi as the perfect student, too goody goody and I was wondering if this series was yet another propaganda like Vivek Oberoi's Namo !!! But it is not, thank goodness as subsequent episodes make very clear.

The episodes certainly hold the interest, the acting by most is pretty good and as mentioned before, the similarity to several real incidents, people and events is for all to see. The sets are realistic and the location shots at the Gandikota canyon area are stunning. Anikha (child JJ) and Anjana JP (young JJ) are very very good. Ramya's resemblance to the former CM is remarkable. There is some lack of continuity. For example Suryakala (Sasikala) comes in all of a sudden out of the blue which can be confusing for viewers not familiar with the politics in reference.

Season 1 signs off as an open ended Ep.11 with the funeral of GMR when Shakthi realises how she is going to shape her political future.

Trust there will be a Season 2 as this is certainly an interesting 'tale' yet to be narrated. Queen is definitely one of the better recent web series.

score 8/10

indianature 26 December 2020

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6404474/