Crimes and Punishments

PAATAL LOK SEASON 2 | Director: Avinash Arun Dhaware Cast: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Gul Panag | Hindi/Prime Video
2025 is the year of returning seasons, with Prime Video’s clutter-breaking, star-making series coming back with Hathi Ram Chaudhry’s trials and tribulations. He and his team will navigate an uncharted territory, “a perilous ‘fresh hell’ that will test them like never before”. The plot remains under wraps.

STARDOM | Director: Aryan Khan |Cast: Mona Singh, Lakshay | Hindi/Netflix

Netflix is chuffed with this catch and why not? Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan makes his directorial debut with a series about the film industry tentatively titled Stardom. Mona Singh and Lakshay star in a cast of many, including, it is believed, several industry A-listers, among them Shah Rukh himself. Young Aryan has had a rocky relationship with fame, including drug charges which were not proven, so don’t expect a shallow nepo kid product from one who has wrestled with the demons of celebritydom.

DABBA CARTEL | Director: Hitesh Bhatia | Cast: Shabana Azmi, Jyothika, Anjali Anand, Shalini Pandey, Nimisha Sajayan | Hindi/Netflix

Shabana Azmi makes her streaming debut in India. Enough said. This Netflix series has Azmi as the queen of the drug trade, serving drugs instead of food in the famous dabbas that keep the wheels of offices moving in Mumbai.

BLACK WARRANT | Director: Vikramaditya Motwane | Cast: Zahan Kapoor, Rahul Bhat and Sidhant Gupta | Hindi/Netflix

Crime and punishment never looked more fascinating in Sunil Gupta’s account of his years at Delhi’s Tihar Jail. The Netflix series, headlined by Zahan Kapoor, is a trip down memory lane into the events that changed Delhi forever, beginning with the killings of Sanjay and Geeta Chopra and ending with the anti-Sikh riots. In between, there is a recurring detour with celebrity inmate Charles Sobhraj and an encounter with striking JNU students (some things don’t change).

THE WAKING OF A NATION | Director: Ram Madhvani Cast: Taaruk Raina, Carl Wharton, Richard Bhakti Klein | Hindi/SonyLIV

History has been Ram Madhvani’s favourite hunting ground ever since his short film The Bloody Line. In the SonyLIV series, which he is currently shooting, he explores the role of the Hunter Commission in bringing to light the horrors of Jallianwala Bagh of 1919.

SUMMER OF 77 | Director: Sudhir Mishra | Cast: Ishalwar, Rajat Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla | Hindi/SonyLIV

SonyLIV has made itself the go-to platform for fine historical fiction, with Rocket Boys and Freedom at Midnight. Mishra unveils a political series on SonyLIV set against the backdrop of the Emergency. Yes, let the comparisons with 2003’s Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi begin.

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