Curse of the Third season

I recently finished the latest seasons of two popular Indian web series, both third seasons respectively, both having had well received first seasons. The series are Delhi Crime, and The Family Man. And what can I say about my deep disappointment with both.

And then it struck me, this is not the first time a ‘Third season’ has let me down. I’ve been here before. Mirzapur, The Inside Edge, and recently Special Ops had the same trajectory. Stellar first seasons, wayward third seasons. Web series are a new phenomenon in India, worldwide even. Very few have had anything beyond the first season, and even fewer have maintained quality throughout. The third season seems especially where they drop the ball.

Delhi Crime and The Family Man seem to have some common ailments. Both stretch thin premises too long. Both tried to make the villains  look more menacing by dumbing down the heroes. Both seem stuck in the first season status quo for their main characters. Same struggle beats are repeated, no significant character growth is seen despite actors playing them having visibly aged, significantly in fact.

What could be the reason for this prominent pattern? It got me thinking. I feel the answer lies in the usual story structure of Indian media. Western movies and visual media at large works in three act structure. The setup, the struggle/journey, and then the resolution. Indian movies and its derived stories rather work in a four act structure. The intermission breaks the struggle/journey in two parts. A twist, usually presented as a short cliffhanger adds new direction to the journey.

The act structure can work over multiple broken down parts too. Baahubali and KGF duologies  are good examples of it, four acts played through individual movies, as well as through overarching arcs over two movies. This structure has seeped into the overarching structure of the Indian web series. That’s why we usually see a cliffhanger at the end of the first seasons of most web series. Almost every series is trying to set up something for later instead of telling a self contained story within one season.

But here’s where we run into the third season problem. A setup only works when there’s a payoff. And the payoff is usually the climax, where the story wraps up. But in ever stretching season schedule, the wrapup never comes. It’s just one cliffhanger after another. And after a while, it seems to be going nowhere. The characters seem to be stuck in the same loop. Writers seem afraid to give them any meaningful development, fearing they’ll lose their attraction amongst the audience. While the truth is quite opposite. Because those very audience are growing up too. Seeing those characters act the exact same way as before is like remembering your teenage years. What was fun at the time invokes cringe now.

It’s especially exacerbated when the gap between two seasons is long, as is the usual case these days. The audience grows a lot more than on screen characters. Animated characters can stay the same age indefinitely, but live action actors age. Yet, their characters are beholden to story arcs which refuse to resolve, and timelines which keep slipping out of sync with the time passed in the real world. This further enforces  the perception of slow character development.

A four act structure works only when there’s a definite resolution at the end. You can always tell a new story, a new chapter in the life of the character. But if there was no satisfactory end to the previous chapter, it becomes a grind. I must digress, that Delhi Crime doesn’t fall strictly in this category. It is more of an anthology than an overarching story. Every season has a self contained story. Its problem lies in the fact that later seasons didn’t have a similar gut wrenching and relevant premise as the first one. In trying to match the same gravitas, they fumbled the execution.

But the rest are definitely struggling with this four act formula. Hardly a few series are trying to tell a self contained story. Many drop off after the first season, leaving an unresolved story. Some who get to come back still refuse to let go with a second season. And the result is what we see, the tired versions of the characters we once adored. Writers  have to abandon the act formula for a more cohesive story structure. They need to let their characters grow. They need to resolve struggles. They need to bring the story to the end.