P.I. Meena

Based in the city of joy Kolkata, PI Meena is helmed by Arindam Mitra and Debaloy Bhattacharya together, as a tale of a professional investigator who witnesses an accident of an unknown person in broad daylight and the consequences she faces thereafter, forms the rest of the story.

The story builds episode by episode with the help of a dark environment which sets the mood of the narration.

The series maintains a continuous pace throughout.

Some good conceptualization has been made out of Covid 19 and it has been camouflaged with a socio political angle intelligently.

Like other web series in recent times, this one too has some characters with their individual sub plots. But a major weakness of the script is that these sub plots either lack proper conclusion or few things remain unexplained even at the end.

Camera work of the series is adequate and dialogues are well written. Editing is a portion where some more or better work was required.

Debaloy Bhattacharya has directed well apart from some minor flourishes. A better version is expected out of him for the next season.

Coming down to performances- Tanya Maniktala carries the show on her shoulders ably, despite the flaws in the script. She is absolutely natural as the investigator. Her character being the central one, more dimensions to it would have made her role more impactful.

Parambrata as usual has played his part well enough as the lawyer. His track too needed some meat for having a stronger impact on the story.

Jishu Sengupta is fantastic as the doctor out of every scope he has received to perform. He shines in every scene, be it conversation with anyone else or the action sequence.

Among the rest- Vinay Pathak, Vipin Sharma, Harsh Chhaya, Samir Soni, Saurav Das, Zarina Wahab and others have played their part well. Each one of their stories needed a proper explanation which is unfortunately missing.

All in all it can be a weekend watch with not very high expectations.

As mentioned before. A better Season 2 can be expected from the talented Team of Arindam, Debaloy, Parambrata and Tanya besides others.....

I am loathe to criticise other people's work as a lot of sweat and toil go in but the recent spate of subpar shows shows across platforms have been disheartening.

I thought Charlie Chopra was disappointing (from a Director I regard so highly) but PI Meena just broke my heart - the evident lack of effort in its writing is hard to digest and a criminal waste of resource and opportunity IMO.

In there somewhere lies a story that could have been, but it is crushed under its own sprawling ambition and inability to pull it all in cohesively in a taut narrative which is key for this genre. In a classic case of tell not show, the verbosity is tiring and needless. Meena's character quirks don't land most of the time because the character is just handed some "cool "markers but not vested with authenticity. And as lovely as Tanya Manicktala is, she isn't able to rise above the pedestrian written material.

Once again as is often the case, the writers fail to create authentic workspace dynamics - the way Meena speaks with her Boss is inexcusable, her playing truant and wasting office resources without any consequence or even a slap on her wrist - given that the agency has 2 half baked cases she can't be a star asset really - are just few of the minor points.

In spite of the dark web and virus and terror groups and agencies, the series has a very dated vibe. Meena's constant platitudinal VO is a drudge and gets in the way of the story. The crater-sized and at times improbable laugh-out-loud plot-holes don't help and some of the subplots one could have done without because they do nothing for the story, at all.

Big words are bandied about but protocols and due process (which could have aided the tautness of the narrative) are cavalierly ignored and often there's no context or logic, the series plods on flat as last year's beer with things happening conveniently because they must happen, loose ends flutter in thin air and that climax - don't get me started on the climax. The loose meandering edit really doesn't help.

One's time will be better spent watching Bengali series Indu instead (also on Prime) - made with proper intent and probably 11/3 the budget - it is an engrossing watch.

The main lead actress, Taniya Maniktala doesn't have the presence and panache to really carry a whole series on her back, I had the same issue with her in the series Tooth Pari and on top of that the drudge of a screenplay doesn't do any favours. It's slow and doesn't connect well, almost feels like it has been written by someone straight out of school and lacks the know how of the emotions of real life. In a protagonists centred screenplay none of the side- characters were let to shine either.

Most of the actors' actions and acting choices felt deliberate, so, the direction was off as well (Let's not talk about so, so many technical mistakes which shouldn't happen at this level, but are always superseded when the story-telling is honest, but sadly that didn't happen either) and the edit went no where with the pacing. A flurry of images followed by a dragging close up shot... there is no beat or rhythm to it and also infested with some basic and honestly sad, technical mistakes.

It's sad to see a platform, Anazon's Prime Video, which gave us Panchayat, Aranyak, Mirzapur, Patal-lok and many more well made Indian series, falling from it's grace, settling and spending money on weak projects and creators such as these.

Despite having good plot and script it seems they are eagerly wanted to complete the series with worst climax and end. All the episode are good and plot is twisted nicely but mood will be spoil At the end because how the story ends. It doesn't suit to script at all.

Despite having good plot and script it seems they are eagerly wanted to complete the series with worst climax and end. All the episode are good and plot is twisted nicely but mood will be spoil At the end because how the story ends. It doesn't suit to script at all.

Many things haven't explained in the end which are supposed to be explain.

I Could not find a story . The Story starts with an accident .The Lead Female character who is a private detective is trying to find out the killer . She travelled n no of times without any reason. She went to the different place for investigation but what she found over there is not displayed. It looks like she just went for timepass. The Back ground music is not matching with the scene. There is no link between her boyfriend story with the main story. Except the Lead Female character remaining character performance was good .But due to weak story , it's difficult for them to do something on it. She is a private detective but does not know the basic of investigation. I would recommend her to learn from similar kind of role. It's complete waste .