Escaype Live review: Siddharth, Jaaved Jaaferi’s show tries to emulate Black Mirror but quickly becomes triggering and cringe

2/5

When a contest is announced in the Escaype Live video streaming app where users can earn instant fame and money, the top five users compete against each other for the same prize, the same glory, each with their motives and fears for a future filled with fame and money trapped in the illusion of the digital web where nothing is sacred and nothing can be hidden.

Around a decade ago, school essays had topics about the pros and cons of phones or technology. Nowadays, the irony is that people discuss the positive and negative impacts of these things as well as social media on social media itself. The first word that pops out while watching much of the content created on the Internet in the name of entertainment is "cringe". While watching Escaype Live, you might feel the same too.

When the series starts, it shows content that a lot of so-called fictional users create for "diamonds" and, of course, fame. From the beginning, the show hints that it's a negative outlook on how people can go to any extent for name and fame. However, it's quite triggering to watch some of the stuff, which probably was the intent of the makers.

Here we are introduced to a maniacal Dark Angel (Sumedh Mudgalkar), who is a narcissist. He is touted to be a typically rich, spoilt brat who only wants money and fame. For the same reason, he is promoted to prank master on the Escaype Live app. He hits a new low every time he plays a prank, and sorry, it's not funny! One sequence has him behaving as if he had murdered a guy at whose house he has been living, and when his mother finds out that it was just a prank, her reaction is laughable (read it stupid).

Mudgalkar is fantastic as a performer, but it's hard to consume what he does after a point in time.

Then there's a 10-year-old girl, Rani (Aadya Sharma), who is introduced as a big girl as she dances to the "infamous" songs performed by Sunny Leone and Nora Fatehi. To add to that, her character is unknowingly pumped with steroids to make her look more mature than she is.

If it's quite disturbing to read, it's quite triggering to watch too!

The world of Escaype Live is created by Siddharth Kumar Tewary, the man behind 2013's epic mythology, Mahabharat. He also penned the screenplay for the Disney+ Hotstar series with Jaya Misra.

With this series, the makers touched upon several topics, including women abusing women. Well, that was something new to watch on OTT after a very long time. To give out a little detail, Plabita Borthakur is a daytime waitress who turns into a masked sex object for the app. She hides her reality of being an under-confident woman behind the mask, and the undue advantage of the same is taken by her boss, played by the brilliant Swastika Mukherjee.

However, for Borthakur, it seems like her character is an amalgamation of her previous outings, Lipstick Under My Burkha and Bombay Begums. Well, it's high time we see more of her soon!

Similar to these lines is Shweta Tripathi Sharma, who is seen as a woman who is rejected by a man (Rohit Chandel) because he is trans. Kudos for getting an LGBTQ+ character, but there's nothing new to offer from that segment apart from creating a representation.

There's also one more character played by Ritvik Sahore, who is a Monkey Man. He performs high-octane and dangerous stunts to gain diamonds.

Most of these characters are shown as people who need money and are ready to cross limits like it's the sky!

And above all of them is Siddharth, whose character is so hard to define that I don't want to try. When you feel he is charming, his character Krishnaswamy reeks of misogyny.

Escaype Live suggests that everyday people want something to do away from their mundane lives. But at what cost? Well, making our eyes and ears bleed in some instances.

It's tough to take this series seriously owing to the Black Mirror kind of backdrop. But it ain't no Black Mirror, and thankfully it's not. The strong premise is let down completely by execution.

What starts with a decent setup becomes boring and dragging after around four episodes. There's a lack of crispness in the screenplay, and even the editing doesn't stitch the sequences well. At times, you will be confused as to whether a flashback scene is going on or not.

You might want to escape this one!

Escaype Live brings a new idea to the table with a collection of all the things that make up the majority of the OTT series; be it LGBTQ+ representation or the pros and cons of social media. In the era of TikTok and Instagram Reels, the series can be quite triggering to watch as the addiction to creating content and going viral is at its peak. But it's a quick transition from cringefest to snoozefest.