At a time when most web series don’t go beyond sex, sleaze and abuse, there is one YouTube channel that has always gone against the tide and presented good old entertainment i.e. SIT (Shitty Ideas Trending), by Chhavi Mittal and her director husband, Mohit Hussein.
Their short comic videos about married couples, such as The Real Victims, Maid in Heaven and Grass Is Greener On The Other Side, etc., where mostly the good old husband always suffers, have become a rage over the past few years.
In keeping with the same tradition, SIT has now come up with one more series called The Family Vacation, where Rohini (Chhavi) and Rishi (Karan V Grover) go to Kasauli to meet the folks (Rohini’s).
This is something most sons-in-law shudder at, because sasurji always finds flaws in them. Chhavi looks beautiful as always and Karan is apt as the poor lost soul. He tries to wriggle out, courtesy other SIT regular (PKP lead, played by Pracheen Chauhan), who always successfully pulls the wool over his wife’s eyes. But Rohini smartly turns the table on him again, using the oldest trick in the book i.e. dad knew you won’t come.
The best part of digital series is that if you successfully speak to cash-rich TGs, brands are ready to collaborate with you, making you no longer dependent on YouTube revenues alone. Something similar has happened here, with an airlines and a university coming on board so far. But yes, the integration does seem forced.
Ayub Khan is apt as the dominating father-in-law who dotes on his daughter. And as it happens, poor Rishi again puts out a bad first impression when their baggage gets lost and FIL quips that luggage is a man’s responsibility. Enter, Rishi’s younger brother-in-law, Kunal (Gunjan Uterja), who promises to take care of the matter and also pays off the cabbie.
The series also touches on another aspect that many married couples face – the one when they don’t become parents soon. With Rohini’s bhabhi in her second pregnancy, Rohini’s mother (Deepika Amin) asks her what the matter is.
She then asks Rishi in a funny, roundabout manner about the same, and he says there is some matter which he will convey later. The look on mom-in-law’s face was worth a million dollars.
Kids can be a bane and Kunal’s brattish son Kabir makes Rishi’s life hell. The scene, where Kunal was smoking a joint and his father thinks that Rishi was doping, was really funny. The rap song which played alongside this sequence was too good.
We are waiting for more episodes of this short series. There is a disjoint in just one thing – the first episode was 10 minutes long, while the second one was 13 minutes in duration. Normally, the first one is longer, to hook the audiences.
SIT’s success as a weekly format also proves the dictum that mode of telecast does not matter (binge vs weekly); finally what matters is good content. Plus, the weekly schedule also gives the makers enough time to whet their creative juices.
And most importantly, it discredits the notion that s*x is needed to pull in eye balls. All SIT shows are very clean, with no double-meaning dialogues and innuendoes. This may also be because SIT does not primarily speak to s*x crazy 16-24 year olds, but to more urban married couples i.e. the 25 +, who have been there and done that.
The humour is very day to day and you can identify with all the characters, making you come back for more. There is nothing OTT or slapstick about the jokes.
We at IWMBuzz.com give this SIT series 3.5 out of 5.