Sivarapalli

Sivarapalli is a decent, feel-good village drama that revolves around a young man who wishes to lead a luxurious life outside the country but ends up being Panchayat Secretary for the remote village named Sivarapalli, hence the title. Every episode in the series has a new and interesting plot, each of which is based on events that are very much happening in the villages around and a viewer from a village would easily get connected to the series. The series also inspires women from rural background to achieve high goals in their respective lives.

Sivarapalli seemed slightly slower to me because I already know the story as I've already seen Panchayat. But as a new viewer, I can say I'd have enjoyed the show more than I've enjoyed the original for the reason that it is made in our very own Telangana dialect.

(P. S.: My MIL watched it along with me and has thoroughly enjoyed the entire series.)

The efforts of Rupa Lakshmi for owning a different dialect and Uday Gurrala for moving from direction to acting for one project need to be appreciated. Muralidhar Goud is well known for his acting and has performed just as good. Sunny Palle was so involved in his role that he maintained the behaviour through out without a dribble. The actors have all done great jobs and would have been exceptional if they had a chance to do workshops.

As we already know this is a remake of the popular Hindi series Panchayat. I gave the first two episodes a watch to see how well the adaptation holds up.

On the bright side, the dialogues are thoughtfully written, and the production quality is commendable. The casting is decent, and while the actors are delivering good performances, they don't quite match the charm of their Hindi counterparts.

The music, cinematography, and other technical aspects are satisfactory, adding a solid foundation to the series.

If you're not familiar with Hindi or unable to watch the original, this Telugu version is worth a try. However, if you have access to the Hindi series, I'd recommend sticking to the original for a more impactful experience.

It is almost a scene to scene copy of its original panchayat. While panchayat seemed a genuine story from the heartland, Sivarapalli doesn't have that appeal for me. For an audience that has never seen the original it would definitely come across as interesting and novel. But for those that have seen the performances of Jeethendra Kumar, Ragubhir Yadav, Neena Gupta, Faizal Malik and even side characters such as the Groom, or even the "Gajab Bejjati hai" guy. They come across as genuine emoting of feeling. I believed that I wasn't watching a show but I had a window into those lives and was watching it unfold as if I were a real life spectator of those events. Sivarapalli comes across as a skit, while it maybe a really good skit, it felt like a skit nonetheless. The emotions and outbursts don't seem proportional at times. Also, they could have made the script tailored to a Andhra/Telangana audience much better by using references more related to the people and culture here. Instead, it felt like they took the same script and just re-wrote it in telugu. Don't get me wrong, for someone watching this without having seen the original this series maybe really enjoyable. But as someone who has seen the original it falls flat when you do a scene by scene comparison. If it were a different script/story, my mind wouldn't have been forced to make any comparisons and I would have enjoyed the show much better. But still a good job of bringing some non-hindi content. Would love to see novel stories from the Telugu heartland too.

Lovely village back drop and natural screenplay, great casting, fantastic performances. Nativity of the local language and village dynamics are well directed, the beauty is in not taking cinematic liberty but sticking to the script and what the director wanted to show. All characters are well thought out, and having good importance to each with subtle comedy, emotions. The secretary, sarpanch characters really made this show a great watch, lovely acting by both and nice village shots, including houses, and there day to day activities.

Over all such an excellent localized series that's refreshing and feel good.

I like panchayat webseries a lot. Watched the remake in Tamil as well. Rag mayur as lead failed to do justice for the protagonist with his bad acting skills. Couldn't connect to lot of characters. Didn't see much of local adaptation as seen with Tamil remake. Director could have got better cast or worked better with cast present. Couldn't see much of the lead frustration because he couldn't live his life as he thought of. Couldn't see much of village life. Wedding episode was better with the groom acting but the rest is all a fail. Better to go watch Hindi webseries again and take a pass about this.