World of Tamil Serials

First off all, what's the distinction between soap, serial, sitcom, and series ? For a show to be called as soap, i think all the characters in the show should have slept around with most of the other characters in the show. And one character would be introducing other character as the person who slept with this person on so and so date and so on. For a show to be called as a serial esp a Tamil serial (TS) , it would need all its characters to specialise on one particular thing and that it to master the art of crying and the second one is to act like a witch. The last thing a TS character would want to do is to smile.

For a casual viewer its kind of confusing to understand what's going on in a TS. You can see the same actor in more than 2 serials, enacting more or less the same kind of role, which will confuse the casual viewer. And if you ask the household lady any of your questions in between, all you can get is a stern look. But you will get an explanation during one of the various breaks that you will get to see in a TS.

Typically in a 30 min time slot you will get to see around 15 mins of the action. And within these 15 mins, you will have atleast 5 mins of musical interludes where you will see camera shifting from one character's crying face to another character's crying face. And also most of the serials carry loud music, loud as in unbearably loud.

The way the names are drying out for these serials, soon the directors have to take up English names. You know what will happen then, the PMK will be having a busy time monitoring both the movies as well as the serials for English names.

Finally happy watching.