ZEE TV postpones “unready” serial ‘Ardhangini’

ZEE TV shocked the producers Kinnari and Jay Mehta of its soon-to-launch serial ‘Ardhangini’ when it was pulled off the air in the last minute.

Heavy promotional activity advertised ‘Ardhangini’ to go live in India on Monday (15th October) and on ZEE TV UK this Monday (22nd October), however according to Mumbai Mirror, the banked episodes of ‘Ardhangini’ had to re-shot.

The channel scrapped the entire bouquet of episodes, the producers were upset with the director, Pawan Sahu, for not following the brief. They have sacked him. Pawan Kumar has been roped in as the new director.

Since ‘Ardhangini’ is a big-budget project the channel wanted the look to be sleek. A source in the production house told Mumbai Mirror, “It’s a big- budget show and the channel wanted everything to be perfect. The production house and the creative heads at the channel had several meetings on the concept, look and the style of the show. In fact, we had shot episodes that would last almost a month but the channel was very unhappy. They wanted the lead actress Sudeepa Singh’s character, Kangana, to be modeled after Paro of Devdas. But it did not turn up like the way it was conceived. Now we are re-shooting it and there’s too much pressure.”

Ashish Kaul, executive vice president of ZEE TV told Mumbai Mirror, “As a channel, we have to keep in mind the long term benefits. The production house is like a mother who never sees any fault in her child, but we have to keep a check on quality control. I think the producers should understand that quality content will make a show big with the viewers. Nowadays, channels pump in a lot of money into the shows and we have to keep that in mind.”

‘Ardhangini’ now goes live in early November.