Special OPS Review | Web Series | Hotstar Special | Listen Me

Special OPS review

Creator - Neeraj Pandey
Cast - Kay Kay Menon, Karan Tacker, Saiyami Kher, Meher Vij, Vinay Pathak, Sana Khan

creator Neeraj Pandey, few man-made things could be as bad as Bard of Blood, a series that has single-handedly lifted huge pressure off the shoulders of every show in existence, and also those still waiting to be produced. Unlike that Netflix series, Special OPS, despite being very uneven, actually respects spycraft.

Much of its action – and it is very old-fashioned in its depiction of espionage – takes place from behind its protagonist’s computer screen. Like Srikant from The Family Man, Kay Kay Menon’s Himmat Singh in Special OPS is the sort of regular Joe you wouldn’t notice on the streets, although unlike Manoj Bajpayee, Menon has a slightly sociopathic glint in his eye.

When we are first introduced to Himmat, he is making life-or-death decisions on his mobile phone, deciding the fate of human beings in tacit, two-word commands. “Thok do,” he hisses into his phone, waiting to be summoned for an inquiry that has been launched into his activities by a newly elected government.

Over the years, Himmat has spent crores in taxpayer money on vaguely defined ‘miscellaneous’ expenses. The show is framed, like the first season of True Detective, in flashbacks, with Himmat narrating his adventures to a couple of comical ‘sarkari babus’. It isn’t, however, as sombre as that brilliant HBO show. Nor is it is bitingly funny as The Family Man. Think of Special OPS as a sort of spiritual sequel to Pandey’s Baby and Naam Shabana -- just as affectionate of spy movie tropes and as averse to Bollywood’s pandering nationalism

It also highlights the comparatively less nuanced performances of the supporting cast, made up almost entirely of television actors such as Karan Tacker and Sana Khan, committed but not nearly in the same league as Menon.

It’s curious to observe how our film industry meanders around tricky themes such as nationalism in times like this. Politically, Special OPS paints a rather problematic possibility, one that imagines the outcome of mass oppression of a single community resulting in retaliation that to some degree the show shrugs its shoulders at, as if it is to be expected.

Special OPS is a minor win for Hotstar. It might not justify a weekend spent in self-isolation, but if you’re already prepared to re-subscribe before the streamer (this time for real) rolls out Disney plus it might just help you bide your time.