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Boygiri (2017)

The show focuses on six central male characters. Each episode revolves around an event or a function, such as a school reunion, a close friend’s funeral, or a trip to see Mumbai Indians at Wankhede Stadium. The stadium trip has one of the show’s few well-fleshed out moments when Manjot and Mantra (Ravi Sinha) get angry at Advait for suggesting that India’s most beloved cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar, might not be all that he is made out to be.
The first episode opens with Advait (Chaitnya Sharma), a Barney Stinson-type playboy without the charisma, telling his school friends Manjot and Pragnesh (Divyang Thakkar) about the various types of sex he enjoys from breakup to makeup. We have heard this conversation before and the characters themselves express frustration with the theme in episode 2 when Advait invites Pragnesh out to a bar so they can talk about “other things” apart from sex.
Provocation is derived from not only sexuality, but also from social issues such as dowry and the beef ban. The second episode opens at a police station because Manjot and Bandah (Ajeet Singh Palawat), whose attempts at setting up a restaurant called Maxi Punjab become the show’s over-arching arc, have been accused by a disgruntled employee of selling beef. In episode 7, Pragnesh’s cousin is getting married and the groom’s family demands dowry by sending Bhadirao (Amey Wagh) as the messenger. Both times, the tension created by these issues isn’t used for comedic value, and because the filmmakers lack the courage of their convictions, the tension is allowed to dissipate. The greatest missed chance comes towards the end of the series. Bandha, who is portrayed as the typical Punjabi man who wears his heart on his sleeve, gets into fights, whose idea of flirting is extra-legal, and wants to become a Punjabi hip-hop star like Badshaah or Honey Singh, has a problem with homosexuals. This familiar dynamic could have been explored to reveal a larger truth about the issue, even if by poking fun at the situation, but the treatment is trite.
The show creates a large canvass for the creators to experiment with. Over time, the characters move past their original cliched characterisations and actually have more than one face to their personalities. But every time there is a chance to take a step forward, the show goes backward. Like its juvenile characters, the series refuses to grow up and take an adult attitude to life.