Heroes and Lost -- The india connection

phantom

It seems like India has finally started to appear on the radar of US entertainment industry... The two most popular TV shows in US, have quite a bit of india connection.

Lets have a look at them.
LOST - Its a story about the survivors of a plane crash in a mysterious island and their experiences while trying to survive there. This TV series has revolutionized the TV viewing experience. The way the story progresses, the way characters are defined, the so many mysteries the show has, keep the viewers hooked from one episode to another. Its currently on its 3rd season and going very strong. Now the india connection:-

The island is supposed to be a laboratory site and that project was called "DHARMA initiative" and every time the lead of that project Dr. hanso appears on a video recording, he starts by saying "namaste".

There are a lot of times characters talk about how sometimes you are "supposed to do some things", its like their karma, that there's a reason that they crashed on this island.. etc etc

Sadly, so far there is no indian character in the series, maybe we'll get some once the mysteries unfold.. !!

HEROES - This series about extraordinarily gifted, ordinary people (mutants), having superpowers, is beginning to have a cult following. The story is complex, and its more about people coming to terms with their genetic evolution and the emphasis is on how they deal with their problems rather than fighting evil in tights.. !!

India connection:-
The main protagonist in the movie is one "Dr. Mohinder suresh", he is a geneticist from chennai. His father also a geneticist, developed a theory and invented a formula by which they can track and find out about these mutants. Now he is trying to get them all aware of whats really happening to them.

I like both the shows, they are gripping, exciting and full of action.. with very few dull moments. Try them out, you might like them.

Noodle

I love both!

But when the 2nd season of Lost was aired last year, the foreign channels were down due to a court dispute for 2 or 3 months (at least here where I live, Pune). Is Lost airing again now? I'm not aware of that but would love to catch up.

Edit: I found Heroes a little confusing at first until I read up about it at Wikipedia. Then it was easier to follow the plot.

__________________
If in hole
stop digging.

Indian saying

LArkitekt

actually, Naveen Andrews, who plays Sayeed, the Iraqi, is British Indian and he has acted in lots of Indian Movies.

Lost definitely lost its viewership since the producers and the network in their infinite greed started dragging the story along and its not really going anywhere...but Heroes on the otherhand moved along in breakneck speed to its pause now...hope it continues that way when it resumes in april and the next season after the summer...

other indian connection right now on TV and also who is a huge center of controversy is Sanjaya Malakar (half indian) of American Idol..has a huge tennage girls following but doesnt perform that well and still keeps moving on...also rumored that indian americans vote in large numbers for him.

Padma Lakshmi, the indian model who was married to Salman Rushdi, hosts Top Chef (Project Runway clone for chefs) on BravoTV.

phantom

I am not sure whether it airs or not.. but you can get all the episodes on the net and that too HD and ads free.. (Dont you love internet sometimes )

I agree with LArkitekt that Lost is not the same anymore.. the story even though still interesting, is not that gripping as it used to be.

Also, it can be noted how both the shows have shown multi-ethnic communities without making fun of anybody. While lost has its Thai, australian, british, korean, iraqi characters (I love the accent with which sawyer talks.. i think its southern) Heroes on the other hand has Indian and japanese apart from the host of other characters.

jeetendra

I noticed the very same thing the other day! If I might add to your list, there's also:

Parminder Nagra in E.R. (playing Dr. Neela Rasgotra),
Navi Rawat in Numb3rs (playing Amita Ramanujan),
Mindy Kaling in The Office (playing Kelly Kapoor)

...and several actors of Indian origin who play non-Indian characters, such as: Indira Varma in 3lbs/Rome, Naveen Andrews in Lost, Kal Penn in 24, Rekha Sharma in Battlestar Galactica, Narayan Sanders in One Tree Hill... and so on.

Oh well, that's all I can think of off the top of my head (with a little help from imdb!).

Noodle

Controversy? Really? What is it about?

He might be still in the Top 10 cause votefortheworst.com has him up .... (asking people to vote for him to keep the worst in the competition)

LArkitekt

Noodle:

Just google and you will find a tons of links...

he has also become a topic of late night shows and even howard stern is in on it trying to get people to vote for him...

people are speculating that producers are actually trying to have him in top 10 so he can be in the touring group and they are also hoping that if he can come out with an album and can be marketed in india, may be they can sell a load of albums...

another speculation is that even a crying young girl in last weeks show was actually strategically placed to show how popular sanjaya is and there are lots of artificial hyping done to market him....

anyway all these are speculations and part of controversy and people are also not happy that better contestants are being eliminated...

disclaimer: i'm no AI expert

Noodle

He is in the Top 10!

Yeah, he's not very good, weak voice, no ooompf etc. But he's charming and pretty and has a lot of teenage fans.

At this stage it's as much about how they present themselves as about the quality of the voice.