Too Much Love

Indian Matchmaking Season 3| Cast: Sima Taparia Creator: Smriti Mundhra | Netflix | English and Hindi

It’s all just too much for Sima Taparia, matchmaker in chief, traveller from London to New York, Miami to New Delhi, looking for a suitable match for all the lonely, loveless people out there. Priya from London is “so much picky”, says Sima Aunty. If Priya wants a match with a man who has a full head of hair why doesn’t she open a salon? Rushali from New Delhi is “too much mama’s girl”. And Bobby from London is “too much talk” and gives her a headache. All this is intercut with scenes of Sima carrying masala, tea and snacks in her suitcase from city to city, visiting the homes of prospective clients, presenting them with one biodata at a time so they don’t get confused. There are plenty of “experts” to assist her. Face readers, tarot card readers, creators of relationship apps for South Asians only, and even trained psychologists who magically cure lifelong traumas. But Professor Sima knows best. When Rushali says she loves writing poetry, Sima snaps that she doesn’t have to marry a poet, she can always read a book. Rushali’s aunt talks about what’s trending in the marriage market. Sima Aunty says: “Matches are made in heaven, not with trends.” Love is the greatest glue of all, eventually, and the ending proves it when love springs in the unlikeliest of matches, and ironically, without Sima Aunty’s direct help.

Why Watch it: To know that arranged or ordained, love is all there is

Cinderella Takes London

The Diplomat| Cast: Keri Russell, Rufus Sewell | Director: Debora Cahn English | Netflix

Katharine Wyler (Keri Russell) is a career diplomat who loves the cut and thrust of politics on the ground, and is all set for an assignment in Afghanistan. Her husband, Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell), is a suave ambassador used to intellectual arguments and clever backroom negotiations. When he becomes the ambassador’s husband and she becomes Cinderella, ambassador to the UK after a terrorist attack on the high seas killing 30 English soldiers, there is consternation everywhere. Not in the least because of the White House’s eventual plan for her, to be vice-president, replacing another woman who is in a hurry to remove an elderly president (could they possibly be referring to Kamala Harris?). Katherine scoffs at the idea that she has to be an emotional support dog for the English, even as her husband can’t help but interfere. Think Homeland meets a modern Downton Abbey. As she makes her way to Winfield House, her new residence in London, with the second largest private garden in the city (Buckingham Palace is the first), she is asked whether she has a tea-length dress and will be photographed by a women’s magazine. To which she says she has a black suit, and “another black suit”, and the only tea length dress she has is a “burqa”.

There’s a smooth talking British prime minister, played by the brilliant Rory Kinnear, a punchline who becomes Churchill with a declaration of war, and lots of characters whose stories are bound to grow in the next season. Is it bad boy Iran that mounted the attack or rogue Russia? No one quite knows even as politicians and diplomats work overtime to avert a global clash.

Why watch it? Some scintillating writing (‘Gannon would shit a live ostrich’ and the offering was like a ‘dead squirrel on the doorstep’). Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell, who try and keep their ambitions and crumbling marriage afloat

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