'The Family Man' S3: Agent down

The new season of the popular spy thriller series starring Manoj Bajpayee feels like a hedged bet

- Uday Bhatia

Sharib Hashmi and Manoj Bajpayee; and (below) Jaideep Ahlawat.

At the end of seven episodes you might wonder, what exactly is this? Another season of The Family Man is over, but it doesn't feel like it. Nothing's been resolved, all possibilities are on the table. We're seeing this a lot in Indian cinema now, story strands and characters left wide open for an indeterminate number of sequels. But it's different with shows. After 7 or 10 or 15 hours, you want to feel like you've watched something whole.

This would matter less if season 3 was as funny and gripping as previous editions. But this is a laboured season, hazily conceived and sorely missing the usual screwball energies of creators Raj & DK, who, after Citadel: Honey Bunny and this, are inarguably slumping. Here, they're billed as co-writers (with Suman Kumar, Nikhil Gonsalves and Sumit Arora) and co-directors (with Kumar and Tusshar Seyth) on all the episodes. Yet, if you told me they'd only been cursorily involved, I'd believe you. You can see their fingerprints on the material, but not their full attention.