Parampara review: Caught between a daily soap and a web series

Parampara is probably the first Telugu web series to have a Season 2, which was released within a year of the first edition (premiered on 24 December 2021).

Season 1 seemed like an abrupt ending. But the makers turned around Season 2 quite quickly.

Parampara hits all the notes right. The visuals are fantastic; the music elevates every scene; the production design is fabulous and that’s where it ends.

The whole attempt seems to be a feast prepared for a corpse. The soul of the web series seems to be missing.

The efforts put in pretty much by every technician on the content piece could not overcome the lazy writing!

What’s in Season 2?

Season 2 picks up from the moment our lead protagonist Gopi (Naveen Chandra) heads to jail.

If you don’t remember, he has been caught by the end of the last season for possession of illegal firearms (or something like that, I really can’t seem to care much about Gopi).

In jail, he meets Ratnakar, who tells him the ways of the world. Gopi then resumes his fight with Naidu.

Though Gopi is portrayed as the protagonist, the true hero, as per the writer, is “Captain Explanation”. Yes, the same Captain Explanation that you will find in daily soap operas that have made Star Maa so dear in my household.

Captain’s Explanation forces every character to speak his mind, what he is about to do, where he is, and what his motivation is behind the act.

There is a point in the web series where one of the goons takes Gopi to a flat and declares, “Here is your fully furnished flat”. I mean, a pan of the camera would have established it to be fully furnished.

One episode consists of every pair of villains talking about what happened. Naidu, supposed to be our big bad villain, takes a leaf out of a bad dictator’s playbook and says, “Someone is trying to sabotage our unity. Maybe it is Gopi or maybe someone else.”

Talent wasted

The powerhouse of talent, which has been put into casting, has simply been wasted.

One can’t bear to see the brilliant Sharath Kumar mouth terrible dialogues and do an over-the-top monologue. It is sad to see Aamani in such a teeny tiny role that we fail to register that it is her.

Of course, we know that this is Gopi’s journey and he is the one we are following. But there seems to be little or no gravitas to others.

Jagapathi Babu, who generally steals the scenes he is in, silently suffers throughout the web series, similar to the audience.

But Parampara has a few shiny moments. Music director Naresh Kumaran shines through the scenes as he desperately tries to salvage the boring and verbose scenes.

Vishweshwar tries to keep the frames dynamic with his cinematography. Tammiraju’s editing can’t be blamed for those lengthy scenes as they have lengthy dialogues.

Without these technicians, Parampara would have turned out into yet another serial that Star Maa usually produces and promotes (if not on the wrong platform).

(Vichitrakar is a filmmaker who expresses his passion for movies through his reviews. He likes to keep a low profile. Hence the pseudonym.)