Prolific production company The Viral Fever has produced some of India’s most popular and relatable web content like Panchayat, Gullak and Kota Factory. With Space Gen: Chandrayaan, they step out of their comfort zone—which by itself is not a bad thing—but it is tough to make science entertaining.
The five-episode series begins with failure – the Indian Space Research Institute (ISRO)—is hoping to race ahead with its Chandrayaan 2 mission, but with the eyes of the media and the world on the launch, something goes wrong, and the launch fails as the lander called Vikram loses communication at the last minute.
The scientists at ISRO are embarrassed and also devastated, because of the waste of all their effort. There are the technical post-mortems, and the scientists having to face political pressure, a sneering media and their own doubts. The show follows the arduous four-year journey leading up to the triumph of Chandrayaan-3, navigating through the hurdles of budget constraints, the global COVID-19 pandemic, and the intense lunar race with Russia’s Luna-25.
Nakuul Mehta plays Arjun Verma, the intense lead navigation expert, who wanted to prove himself since he had lost his father in the Kargil War due to the lack of precise satellite tech. The project director is Yamini (Sriya Saran), the lone woman in the all boys club of engineers and tech geeks. Prakash Belawadi as Sudarshan the ISRO Chief is at loggerheads with an ignorant yet aggressive bureaucrat, Mohanty (Gopal Datt)
TVF is known for its simple, realistic shows, so their limitations are glaring in a space drama, directed by Anant Singh. Comparisons with the much superior Rocket Boys are immediately apparent. The production values and performances in the science-based show, also based on true events, made the older show memorable and educative in a non-pedantic way.
In Space Gen: Chandrayaan, the basic elements to shake up a dramatic and suspenseful cocktail are there – struggle, chaos, high pressure, patriotism, pride—but somehow the mix fails to work. The cast does not look like they belong in a lab, and actors like Mehta, Saran and Danish Sait (as an engineer) do not come together as a convincing or even likeable team, and Datt’s hammy performance belongs to a different kind of farce.
Maybe five episodes were inadequate to, first establish the importance of the work ISRO does, better introduce the principals in the drama, so that their characters come across clearly. Having people tapping away on keyboards or peering at monitors and uttering what must seem like gibberish to the layperson with a tenuous grasp on science does not make for watchable content. By the time the story starts to get interesting, it is too late to salvage the show.
Spacegen: Chandrayaan
Directed by Anant Singh
Cast: Naakul Mehta, Gopal Datt, Sriya Saran and others
On JioHotstar
