The longest-running detective series on Indian television, CID, recorded a rating of five plus a couple of weeks ago. Producer-director BP Singh, who is currently shooting a special series in Paris, on what makes his show popular. What prompted you to do a special series of the ever-popular show CID?
Though the programme is very popular and has lasted for 13 years, it’s very important to keep innovating in terms of presentation and story-telling. One of our USPs is outdoor location shoots. While others find it difficult to have regular outdoors, we are very comfortable with it. Sony also supports us wholeheartedly in terms of finance. We have had major shoots earlier in Jodhpur, Kochi, Manali, Shimla and London. This major shoot in Paris-Switzerland (Berne, Zurich and Interlaken) is part of our 13th year celebration plan. We have achieved most of our targets (getting a rating of ‘5’ plus was one of them). There are two-three other landmarks which we are likely to achieve in the next few months.
Why did you think of placing this particular story abroad?
Every episode of CID is based on solving a murder, though we keep varying the method of solving it. The last eight stories had a major element added to the regular stories and that is “attack on CID”. An unknown threat has suddenly emerged and he is trying to wipe out the very existence of CID. The climax of this kind of a story had to be big. We cannot match films in terms of scale but in our own way we are doing our best. The moment the visuals are shifted to a foreign location we get to see interesting faces, hear different languages and see our characters in amazing locations.
Why did you choose Mahesh Manjrekar as the supervillain?
Mahesh and I have had a long professional relationship. We have done some remarkable Marathi serials together like Ek Shunya Shunya and Kshitij. He suited the character. Besides, he agreed to take time out of his busy schedule and come to Paris with us.
Running a detective series for 13 years is no mean feat. How do you keep re-inventing the show?
Within a few months we will be entering the 14th year. As I mentioned earlier, we cannot change our basic theme of solving a murder mystery but we keep adding characters in each episode who are not regular. These characters add a different flavour to a particular story. Besides this, we have a forensic lab and an eccentric forensic doctor. We regularly amaze people with startling medical and ballistic facts.
Simultaneously you have started Aahat special. Tell us the idea behind that.
Aahat, since it started 15 years back, has always been in “an episodic” format. At one point it was felt that since it is in a slot where there are regular soaps as competition, we can try to tell a continuous story in 16 parts. This is how the idea of ‘maut ka khel’ was conceived.
Between horror and detective, the latter seems to be more popular. What do you think is the reason?
Not many people are inclined to watch horror. On one hand, there is a very dedicated bunch of audience who ‘smell’ horror anywhere and flock to see it in the late night slot too. But except for the initial six- year telecast of Aahat (about 300 episodes) — where I tried my best to make it suitable for ‘family’ viewing — many people don’t consider horror as a genre that they can watch with their families. On the other hand, detective serials like CID can be watched with everyone. We take special care while selecting themes (in CID) which aren’t offensive.
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