‘Andhera’ Series Review: Will The Real Darkness Please Stand Up?

Cold on the heels of Mandala Murders, Andhera (“darkness”) is yet another supernatural thriller that ends up becoming a cautionary tale on narrative ambition. This genre of horror is so shapeless that, if the theme isn’t as culturally focused as a Khauf or even an Asur, it tends to spiral into several directions without doing justice to any. It’s like a batsman who keeps swinging big — regardless of the match situation — under the pretext of “intent”. It doesn’t help that Andhera is one of the longest Hindi shows of the year. Or perhaps its 8 episodes feel longer because the world-building just never stops building; it’s not a good sign when a central character says “we were wrong all along” in the penultimate episode. It’s obvious that I’ve run out of patience because I usually don’t hit the ground running with criticism in the opening paragraph. I like some suspense and world-building too. But life is short and, if the title is anything to go by, I’m one typo away from reviewing the suburb I live in (Andheri).

On another day, perhaps it would be easier to appreciate the chaos of the premise. Andhera revolves around a curious Mumbai cop (Priya Bapat, as Kalpana) who teams up with a troubled medical student (Karanvir Malhotra, as Jay) haunted by visions of a demonic entity that looks like darkness in human form. The case of a missing escort is somehow connected to the comatose state of Jay’s older brother, Prithvi (Pranay Pachauri), who was once a promising doctor himself. Joining the two on this uncertain mission is a vlogger (Prajakta Kohli, as Rumi) who runs a paranormal channel called ‘Unseen Supernatural Club’ and a computer nerd (Kavin Dave, as Jude) who shares Jay’s visions. Meanwhile, as in previous Excel production Dabba Cartel, the queer female cop falls for a woman who may or may not be involved in this expansive mess.

Andhera initially unfolds as a mainstream and innovatively imagined — if slightly tacky — allegory on mental illness and a country’s prickly relationship with it. The literalisation of depression as a supernatural force extends to little details like a housing society called ‘Lume’ or one of the survivors using UV lights to fend off the darkness. For the first few episodes, despite the TV-coded aesthetic and clunky staging, there’s potential to explore an urban pandemic of loneliness and social complicity. This potential soon implodes. It’s almost as if the makers do everything to avoid confronting the depth of a psychological thriller.

The debris we are left with feature a cloaks-and-daggers plot full of capitalist conspiracies, doomed guinea pigs, evil-pharma-company cliches, illegal experiments, emotion-sucking machines called ATEM (Advanced Tech Enabled Mindfulness), supervillains chasing immortality, a comic-book called Satya the Warrior Monk, a not-suspiciously-named-at-all wellness center called Aatma Healing, a Russian nurse named Olga, hallucinations in a story being replaced by some story in hallucinations, machines that upload copies of consciousness, and a performer who’s been typecast as the I-am-the-mastermind twist across streaming in the last year. There’s also a shady doctor (Parvin Dabbas) and a hitman-like chap called Darius (Vatsal Sheth) who behave like they’re stuck in an elaborate videogame. I don’t mean to sound dismissive, especially given the conviction and scale of this series, but it’s hard to believe that nobody stopped to wonder if Andhera trivialises the very human fragility it uses as a gimmick.

The laboratory gobbledygook consumes what could have been a powerful exploration of grief, memory and coping mechanisms. It’s the sort of conceived-in-ivory-tower idea that keeps diluting itself and finding new toys to prove that it’s accessible — or bingeable. At one point, I even considered that this might be an edgy satire on the role of trauma-flashbacks in Bollywood movies. But that’s just me searching for subtext and coherence. Ambition alone is like shadow-batting in the nets; the result is what matters. When backed into a corner, Andhera resorts to mytho-horror: the genre that often brings out the opportunism of modern Hindi cinema. Sometimes the excitement to play around with concepts is infectious, but even diseases are infectious.

The density of information in an hour-long finale is impossible to follow, mostly because the viewer is by now too exhausted to pursue the endgame. I lost myself and started dreaming of a nap long before that; the shaky foundation — unconvincing actors, corny dialogue, bleak camerawork, moody CGI — facilitated my checkout without the use of my (mental) credit card. This is the sort of big-swing series that should be offering food for thought beneath its layers of dressing. But the microwaved clinicality is strange, almost as though it’s a body that has no space left for a heart or mind (the irony). So all I can do is not succumb to the temptation of cracking an ‘Andhera’ pun from my dark corner in Andheri. For anyone familiar with the area — and, by extension, this series — getting out is just as hard as getting in.