In The Maze:
Pitchers (2015) was among the first OTT series made by The Viral Fever (TVF), the company that was a clutter-breaker in the age of saas-bahu serials on television, that did not appeal much to urban youth.
The streaming giants had not yet made an entry, so their shows that appeared on TVF’s YouTube channel, website TVFPlay and app, were surprisingly big hits. Pitchers gave a glimpse into the crazy, stressed world of startups, all of which look for investors in a nascent and intensely competitive market, and dream of becoming the next big thing.
Pitchers Season 2 comes seven years after the first, the success of which ensured that it was picked up by ZEE5. It takes off from the point where the friends, who had left lucrative jobs to work on their own startup and succeeded in getting seed funding, must now move up to the next level.
Most shows for and about the youth focus on love stories and some on college antics—Pitchers looks into their workplaces, youngsters struggling to make it big in the future, even if it means sacrificing their present. Romance, families, friends, are put on hold for that elusive career goal that may or may not be achieved. For this coding skills are as important as networking and preparing the perfect pitches.
In Season 2, only three of the four friends remain to run their venture Prakriti.AI—the fourth– Jeetendra Kumar,–left the group for an unknown destination. Now Naveen (Naveen Kasturia), Saurabh (Abhay Mahajan), Yogi (Arunabh Kumar—also founder of TVF, co-director and co-writer of the show), run their enterprise (not clear what the app is mean to do). They manage a younger team, chase funding, are pipped to the post by rivals (a malevolent Sikandar Kher), face disappointment, and are brought to the brink of disaster.
The story, in many ways, mirrors that of Arunabh Kumar, who is then able to infuse the show with authenticity. Even those who may not follow the tech world would be able to relate to the concepts of friendship, loyalty, ambition, struggle, disappointment and achievement. The actors are also a little older and their performances more assured.
That said, the second season fails to regenerate the humour of the first, or the taut pacing and sharp wit. There is only so much the search for a CTO can be dragged till it becomes boring, or the disgruntlement of the staff be made interesting or funny. The running time of the five episodes is bloated by repetition and flashbacks.
Still, younger viewers will be able to identify with it, and for older viewers, there is nostalgia—everyone must have started out with hope, and the show would remind them of it. It would also, perhaps, make parents understand just what their kids go through when there is constant pressure to succeed. The recent spate of real-life suicides in the coaching hub captured by another TVF show, Kota Factory, are also an indication of this rate race mentality. In a sense, Pitchers is a sequel—those who survive the rigours of the Indian education system, land up in the cut-throat world of career building.
(This piece first appeared in seniortoday.in)
