Any new series and your expectations go up and Aarya was no exception. With big names like Sushmita Sen and Ram Madhvani behind the project and it was billed as Sen’s comeback.

The promos looked promising and two dialogues from the promo caught my attention. The first was ‘Dhande main mard bache hi nahin hain‘ and second was ‘Bharosa wohi todte hain Jin Par Bharosa Toda Jaata Hai‘. The writer in me was really looking forward to more such dialoguebaazi in the web series.

Eleven day late, I finally watched the series over two nights. All my initial enthusiasm came crashing down in the opening episode itself. But the optimist me was hoping for a revival in the episodes ahead.

Should I be happy that I delayed the torture by 11 days or sad that I gave in too soon?

The plot
Aarya is about a family where everything that can go wrong is wrong. Again these are all high society families and they have a pharmaceutical business and they deal in drugs as well. A deal, well not exactly a deal, but drug consignment is stolen and this triggers killings and stage is set for Aarya to take over.

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Performance
Its average for all. Sushmita Sen leads the pack and is the biggest disappointment. She has a stock expression and is a complete misfit in the lead character. Everytime she appears on the screen it gives you feeling of watching Sonam Kapoor (minus the little bit of acting Sen manages). She is decked up always.

Chandrachur Singh is bumped off in the second episode itself so he had very little to do. He comes back in bits and pieces in videos. Sikander Kher who has a soft corner for Sen never gets to do much.

Writing
The biggest let down by far. I so wished that was not case but have lost count of series where writing is the main culprit. Almost all the characters have a story running and it gets really messy. You think of any character and they have a story. If it was mentioned in the passing instead of developing another story, the series would have wrapped up in five episodes. But there are so so so many sub plots. The kids have their stories. The grandfather too has one. Why was the grandmother left out? Ditto for the domestic help who is present in all the episodes. May be a lust angle, if not love, involving Sikandar Kher?

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Direction
With a messy script direction becomes a task and it shows. The story drags and you wish someone had focussed on the writing more instead of the shooting technique. Ram Madhvani’s treatment leaves room for improvement – make it rooms for improvement.

The series was a disaster which was avoidable had the writers tried something new. As with all the series these days, there are love making scenes and surprise, surprise, the young and the old all get to ‘perform’ if you know what I mean. There is hint of gay angle in the story as well but that is just touched upon. I wish the writers did the same with other sub plots as well. The problem is even with a tried and tested formula, the script falls flat on its face. There is a sequel in the offing and I am going to give it a miss (whenever it happens).