Thalaivettiyaan Paalayam - Lost in Translation

Thalaivettiyaan Paalayam

Tamil/ Comedy

8 Episodes/Approx. 30 mins 
Prime Video

This is an official Tamil remake of the absolutely lovely TVF series "Panchayat".  Panchayat, is one of the shows which runs on repeat in my home (in a few years, am sure the rewatch counts will rival "Friends" 😀).

Inspite of this, i decided to watch this version to see if the change in nativity could create new situations while staying true to the characters and theme. There are some attempts to make some subtle changes. The "family planning" theme becomes  "menstruation", the pradhan is literate, prahlad is actually the pradhan's brother. 

Despite these subtle alterations, about 70% of the show is a near-identical copy of the original, which feels like a missed opportunity. A more creative adaptation with additional writing could have reinvented certain situations and made the show more engaging. Even the village setting and panchayat office closely resemble their counterparts in "Panchayat."

As much as Abishek Kumar tries (truthfully he does redeem himself in the last few episodes ), he cannot bring the raspiness or angst that Jitendra Kumar brought. The real life couple of Devadarshini and Chetan are quite good as the Pradhan and the husband. They are the ones who save this to a large extent.

The Lakshmipathi ("Vikas") and  Prabhu (Prahlad) while being ok, are  absolutely no match to the original characters. This reminds you how good  Chandan Roy (Vikas) was in the original show. 

It is still clean family entertainment and is just about an ok watch, if you have nothing else to see at this time. It will be interesting to see if this is carried forward to catch up with the original show.