TVF Pitchers – tastes like wine, hits like whiskey and of course flows like beer

If you ever had written an essay on Television during your school age and hadn’t called it as an Idiot-Box, your essay was as incomplete as any anchor’s script without the phrase: ‘last but not the least’. Indian TV channels left no stone unturned to validate this tag. The Kapoor Sisters ensured that transition from Idiot-Box to Idiot’s-Box was smooth. MTV made us believe that ‘Immunity Tasks’ of Roadies and Splitsvilla are the real tests of one’s life. Sony-Max became every coder’s nightmare: an infinity loop of Sooryavansham!

Slowly and steadily, the Indian youth felt disconnected with Television at various levels. A few of them, having good understanding of English language, found a little solace in TV series like Friends, Game of Thrones, HIMYM, Two and a Half Men, Dexter etc. Somewhere above the sky, the soul of Macaulay must had the final laugh on his concept of ‘Indian by Birth, Englishmen by Heart’.

Then came a few engineers to our rescue. Apparently, engineers have a solution to every freaking problem of this country. There are certain times of year when we have more engineers in our country than total number of onions! The most hilarious were the TVF guys. Founded by Arunabh Kumar in 2010, TVF is an online youth entertainment network which initially started with short comical videos revealing the funnier side of engineering and day to day life. Overwhelmed with the amazing response, TVF decided to try their wits in online drama series. The first one was Permanent Roommates which became one of the most watched branded web series in the world. The huge success of the series led to another series: TVF Pitchers which was a realistic take on the journey of aspiring entrepreneurs in India. Initially, viewers were sceptical about this show being Indian remake of Silicon Valley. But, as it turned out, it was less exaggerated and more realistic story of four young men who quit their jobs to pursue their entrepreneurial passion. One of them actually continues his job to keep others’ passion alive.

A lot has been told and written on how TVF Pitchers is one of the most fantastic Indian TV series(read web series). We shall look into the various factors which, in our opinion, will prove to be a game changer in Indian TV series Industry.

1. The actors are brilliant! Some of the dialogues and events are so common in our daily life that their enactment, first time ever on screen, made the scenes extraordinary. Jeetu wasn’t portrayed as some ethical hacker to convey his coding skills. He is just hard working flawless coder. Yogi’s entry would be remembered for years. Mandal is the irritating guy that every college group has. And, Naveen just lived the character to the fullest. Expressions on his face were the emotions of that scenes. The story wasn’t circled around him. The story runs parallel to him!

   Hamari gaadi do din se puncture padi hai lekin saala use sahi karane ka time nahi mil raha kyunki yahan compilation error aa raha hai

2. The script flows like beer. Whether it was Jeetu’s wife convincing her father in law, Naveen’s resignation and persuasion by his boss and then teaching him a tough lesson on how to say ‘no’ without even actually saying ‘no’, Naveen choosing Shreya’s career between her and her career, Mandal’s ordinary yet so powerful presentation etc. each and every scene had something for Indian youth to relate himself with. TVF just redefined creativity.

   Is desh ke graduates jab apne 9 to 5 ki job se bore hone lagte hai naa to bahar nikalne ka liye unhe sirf teen raaste soojhte hain – IAS, MBA ya fir startup 

3. It doesn’t matter how much we deny but the fact is: we are a star struck nation. We seek for our heroes everywhere. TVF gives us our heroes. They aren’t any super humans or child prodigy. In the conclave scene, instead of going with any actor, TVF invited the CEOs of FreeCharge and Uber. It was a masterpiece. Four actors, three of which were acting as aspiring entrepreneurs and one (Arunabh) was himself a successful entrepreneur, all trying to pitch their idea before two real CEOs. Totally bliss!

Much easier way of conveying that successful people don’t do different things, they just do it differently.

4. The supporting actors of every scene remind of Chinese paintings which used to have voids or empty spaces which was different from blank spaces. Such are the supporting actors in TVF Pitchers. They are not just fillers who merely support the lead actors, they complement the scenes. In fact, Biswapati Sarkar, script writer, admitted that the supporting actor of any episode was actually the lead himself in all scenes. This is some real innovative idea, quite contrary to Indian TV soaps.

Kya hai enterpreneur ki aatma jo hoti hai naa, badi bechain hoti hai, jab tak masterpiece nahi bana le naa, idhar udhar bhatakti rahti hai

5. TVF Pitchers was never about the end. Right at the outset, happy-ending lovers knew that the guys would make it to the ribbon at the end. It was the journey that made the show beautiful. As Naveen pointed out in his 5 minute speech-stunt, we Indians are habitual of asking the wrong questions like ‘why’ instead of ‘what’. The show tries to answer the ‘why’ and ‘how’. In fact, it never answered the ‘what’! That’s TVF for you!

Rajat aapne kaha tha ki mai aaj stage pe khade hoke apna product nahi bech sakta, to maine khud ko bech diya

Creativity, meticulous cinematography, humorous punches, mind-boggling actings and a loud and clear message. There is no end to appreciation of the TVF team. Clearly, the bars have been raised for other web-based networks. Arunabh wants TVF to be India’s answer to Disney. Though, it’s too early to forecast that whether the answer is befitting or not, but with an IMDb rating of 9.7, at least we do have an answer. At least, we have an answer to

“Tu Hai Kya”.

“Main Beer Hoon “