Gyaarah Gyaarah review: What starts off as an intriguing time travel story loses its grip by the end

Directed by Umesh Bisht, Gyaarah Gyaarah interests you in parts but also leaves you confused at the same time. Here’s why!

Gyaarah Gyaarah review: The name of the show ‘Gyaarah Gyaarah’ that translates to 11:11, the famous angel number when most people make their wishes at with all their heart, is given a completely different twist with this show. Who would’ve thought a time that is supposed to make your wishes come true would actually play such a key element in solving crimes! That's the first reason why Gyaarah Gyaarah lures you into its spooky world. Set in Dehradun, the show goes back and forth between many different timelines but three people remain constant and connected to it all. Yug Arya (Raghav Juyal), Vamika Rawat (Kritika Kamra) and Shaurya Antwal (Dhairya Karwa), three skilled and dedicated police officers solve cases that no one else is able to. But here’s the catch, Shaurya is solving these cases in the 90s and Yug and Vamika are solving those same unsolved cases in the future in 2016. Shaurya and Yug can talk through a walkie-talkie from the 90s to 2016 exactly at 11:11 everyday for that one minute to help each other with clues and prevent these crimes from happening in the first place.

Over the course of the eight episodes, the show deals with three main cases. The first one being the murder of a child which was left unsolved for 15 years. Everyone loves watching a classic whodunnit. Along with Yug, your mind as an audience starts churning and putting the pieces of the puzzle together as well. The moments where they actually realize who the killer is and it turns into a 'catch me if you can' situation is when you feel like you’ve found the right kind of content to watch this monsoon. But as the series unfolds further, the story and the cases start becoming stale. The case towards the end about gangsters, political connections and drugs is when you no longer know where the show is going. It starts off with you thinking that this has a lot of potential but fails to bring out anything concrete.

Also Read: HOTD 2 is a slow-burn continuation of the Dance of the Dragons!

Before this show, we saw Raghav as an antagonist in Kill last month and his performance was surprisingly impressive. In Gyaarah Gyaarah, he plays the polar opposite character of a police officer and brings his authenticity to the character. After seeing him dip his toe in the world of acting and play these two roles, I think it's safe to say that he's here to make heads turn and create a good body of work for himself. Kritika and Dhairya also stay true to their characters in the show but it's hard to focus on them when they share screen space with Raghav. 

But here’s something that I noticed while watching the show. In the second case where the serial killer targets working women who wear makeup and the serial killer in the first case is also a woman, you start to ask yourself what exactly they're trying to say here. There’s already so much stigma in our country around working women, is it really wise to paint them as the devil here? Even Vamika, for that matter, is shown to be a strong and level headed female cop but her mother’s biggest problem is that she is 35+ and unmarried. 

Produced by Dharmatic and Sikhya Entertainment, Gyaarah Gyaarah tries its best to create a Back to the Future and Stranger Things kind of universe but misses that hard hitting angst and edginess that such stories need. After a point, the cuss words and violence in the show just feels forced and out of place which is what plays a key role in the story losing its grip. Having said that, the climax of the series ends on a cliffhanger which actually makes you wonder if things could go back to how they were or can it actually redeem itself with a better arc in season 2!

Gyaarah Gyaarah is currently streaming on ZEE5!

For more such content and reviews, follow us on @socialketchupbinge.