When crime journalism entertains like never before

Netflix’s Scoop is not just a TV show but an experience, especially for those who are part of the media fraternity anywhere in the world. Not only does it take the audience back in time when Mumbai underworld ruled the metropolis with an iron fist, but also lets them choose sides as to whether they stand with honest journalists who cover crime or corrupt individuals who leave no stone unturned to make their lives miserable.

Based on former crime reporter Jigna Vora's book Behind Bars in Byculla: My Days in Prison, the series show how crime reporter Karishma Tanna’s Jagruti Pathak, (character’s name changed to avoid contractual obligations, maybe!) was framed by the Mumbai police for doing her job, and how they linked her to infamous don Chota Rajan, in the murder of another fellow journalist.

Backed with impeccable performances, flawless writing, and an art direction to die for, the series is not just a good watch for those interested in the Indian underworld saga but also a must-watch for those upcoming journalists, who have no idea how hard it is to bag the ultimate prize ― a front page byline in a leading newspaper.

The Plot

Scoop revolves around the murder of a prominent crime reporter Jaideb Sen (Prosenjit Chatterjee) for which Mumbai Police frames another fellow journalist Jagruti Pathak (Karishma Tanna), allegedly on the behest of the underworld. Despite being close to JCP Harshavardhan Shroff (Harman Baweja), and not being in the city when the crime took place, she is sent to prison where she gets to share the space with many criminals who got convicted because of her stellar work.

How the disgraced journalist’s family is hounded by her fraternity during her time in prison, how her friends tried their best to get her acquitted, and what key errors were made by the Mumbai Police that resulted in her bail and ultimate acquittal, are covered in these six episodes. It wouldn’t be incorrect to say that the show is a cat-and-mouse chase featuring not two but three parties ― Mumbai Police, the underworld, and Jagruti Pathak ― with the latter winning the battle with her resolve and ability to withstand any kind of pressure.

The Good

TV shows made in India have come a long way since Sacred Games and Mirzapur which wouldn’t have become successful without the excessive use of cuss words, intimate scenes, and over-the-top action sequences. Scoop doesn’t use any of the ingredients that made these pre-2020 shows successful and stays grounded, banking on the plot, the performances, and the pace with which they were presented.

Director Hansal Mehta must be commended for another job well done after Scam 1992; if you thought that he might not be able to better that series with another one then you were wrong, because he used a bigger platform to his advantage to deliver a story that was both closer to the audience’s lifetime and relatable due to the boom in crime reporting. Unlike Scam 1992 which was about the fraudulent activities of Stock Exchange brokers, Scoop hit close to heart, because the Mumbai Police, the underworld, and the media were involved.

Written by Mrunmayee Lagoo Waikul and Mirat Trivedi, the writing is simply brilliant since it gives most of the actors ample chance to develop their characters and present them in their own way. Every actor from leading lady Karishma Tanna to Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Harman Baweja to Deven Bhojani, Tannishtha Chatterjee to Prosenjit Chatterjee, gave the best performances of their lives in the show and looked more like the characters they were based on instead of actors playing characters given to them.

If Pratik Gandhi carried Hansal Mehta’s last big TV show on his shoulders, Karishma Tanna does the same here in Scoop, where she shows the audience the struggle they know nothing about and how hard it is to get a good scoop on a normal day. She dons multiple hats as Jagruti Pathak and excels in all, be it that of a single mother, a fiery journalist, an independent woman who looks after her family, and finally, as an inmate of Byculla Jail who had done nothing to deserve the punishment. Her expressions were spot on no matter what the situation was and that’s why the audience was able to connect with her and relate to her ordeal be it before her character goes to prison or afterwards.

Let me confess, before watching the series I wasn’t sure if Karishma Tanna would be able to pull it off as the lead character, because the last time, I saw her, it was in a cameo in Sanju in 2018 and before that, it was in the needlessly lengthy Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi some two decades ago. However, she proves me and others wrong by delivering a powerful performance as the leading character, one who has to make a name for herself in the men’s world and she sure does that. Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub’s Imran Siddiqui ― based on veteran journalist Hussain Zaidi ― is the second-best thing in the show, because not only is he flawless, but stabilises the situation once his protégé is wrongfully convicted for a crime she didn’t commit.

The most shocking aspect of the show was however the return of actor Harman Baweja who wasted his prime years trying to look like Hrithik Roshan and failed. However, in this series he plays a fitness freak cop who is behind everything that’s gone wrong in Jagruti’s life, however in his mind his steps are in the right direction. After this performance, he has finally proved his credentials as an actor and one hopes to see him more in realistic characters than the ones he performed in his dad’s films.

One must also mention Deven Bhojani, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Ayaz Khan, Inayat Sood, and others who may have played minor characters, but were able to leave an imprint in the viewers’ minds with their performances. As for the dialogues, they are written at par with the characters which makes it all the more interesting.

If Zeeshan Ayyub’s Imran Siddiqui is saying something, then it’s penned in perfect Urdu, but when Karishma Tanna’s Jagruti talks to a fellow Gujarati, it’s in the language the two characters understand. Karan Vyas, the man with the magical pen who wrote the dialogues of Scam 1992, reteams with Hansal Mehta here to give a perfect script that would help juniors understand why the pen is mightier than anything.

The Bad

First of all, the director could have used veteran actor Prosenjit Chatterjee in a better manner and given him more scenes, so that when his character is assassinated in broad daylight, the audience would have felt worse than they actually did. Secondly, it would have been better had the episodes not been longer than 40 minutes because at times it seemed that the director was wasting time to make it past the 50-minute mark.

Also, if the director knew that Zeeshan Ayyub had credited Jonathan Fraser incorrectly for a quote regarding journalism, he could easily have changed that in editing, but he chose not to which would seem odd to those journalists who know the difference between Jonathan Fraser and Jonathan Foster, who actually said those words.

And then there were the discrepancies between the show and the source material; despite the director’s best efforts to stay close to the book, he does take creative liberties that could have been avoided. In the book, Jigna Vora pens down that she wasn’t treated badly because of her stature as a crime reporter, however, the series shows that she was treated inhumanly once inside the jail.

Similarly, the director could have played with the intensity of the lights never getting switched off in jail to highlight the insomnia tendency in the principal character, whereas the scenes where the new inmate was treated badly could have been avoided, because they have been done to death on celluloid. I also feel that the flashback effect the book begins with would have helped the screenwriter in developing a gripping script, which might have done even better in the hands of a magician like Hansal Mehta.

The Verdict

On the whole, Scoop is one TV show that must be on your must-watch list, because it gives you the break you deserve from Saas Bahu dramas aired on TV, as well as the extremely aggressive (for no reason) web series which are aimed at adult viewers. It has emotions, drama and it keeps the audience on the edge of their seats throughout its run making it a one of its kind show from India to be released on Netflix this year.

What began as a satirical take on media first transformed into the tale of an innocent person who is framed for a crime she didn’t commit, but ends up with a powerful courtroom drama that would bring many Bollywood films to shame. After going through the episodes, viewers who have read Hussain Zaidi’s books like Dongri to Dubai, Byculla to Bangkok, and My Name Is Abu Salem would be able to relate to whatever happened in Scoop, the rest might want to conduct a little research of their own to understand the cut-throat world of the underworld, media, and police in big, bad Mumbai.

Omair Alavi is a freelance contributory who writes about film, television, and popular culture. All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the writer