Akhil Arora

In Shōgun—the new miniseries adaptation of James Clavell’s 1975 bestselling novel, rooted in history and set in the year 1600—a shrewd lord who refuses to have kingly aspirations and claims he’s only interested in keeping the peace is told early on there’s no room for good men in this age. After all, everyone around him is busy plotting. Some more openly than others. His equal is turning the council of regents he serves on against him, his loyal chieftains are hiding valuable info from their master, hoping to benefit them later, and even the priests who claim to spread the word of the Lord have ulterior motives. Elsewhere, a man is boiled alive, breasts are bared, and a lord watches a woman jerk another man off. What is this, the Japanese Game of Thrones?

In early 2021, Emmy winners Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge—best known to TV audiences for creating and starring in the surreal and satirical Atlanta and the cringe comedy-drama Fleabag, respectively—announced that they were partnering up for their next series project. What would that collaboration result in? A reimagining of the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie-led 2005 action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Naturally, television lovers had a lot to be excited about, but the project lost some of its charm when Waller-Bridge dropped out later that year. Glover termed it “classic creative differences”. Two years and a bit later, the Amazon series—sans Waller-Bridge—has rolled in with eight episodes (I’ve seen all). It’s no classic, but it sure is a lot of fun.

Ever since Apple unveiled its Netflix competitor roughly four years ago, it has shown an interest in big-budgeted prestige dramas in a bid to be a part of the conversation alongside the likes of HBO (House of the Dragon) and Amazon Prime Video (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power). But its attempts in the past have been a mixed bag. Save for the excellent trilingual Pachinko, Apple TV+ has failed to land a show that can establish it as a powerhouse. It hasn’t stopped trying, but its many attempts—For All Mankind, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Foundation, Invasion, or See—have been on a gradual scale of satisfying to utterly unwatchable. Enter its latest and most expensive gamble, made on a reported budget of $250 million: Masters of the Air.

Killer Soup—the new Netflix series led by Manoj Bajpayee and Konkona Sensharma—has a fairly good idea of the recipe it’s going for: three to four cups of blood, a splash of dark comedy, and a pinch of camp. More or less along the lines of what Bill Hader gave us on Barry, Noah Hawley’s anthology series Fargo, or Martin McDonagh with In Bruges or The Banshees of Inisherin. But just like Bajpayee in the eighth and final episode, Killer Soup spills a whole can of an ingredient that was meant to be used sparingly. In effect, we end up with an entirely different dish altogether. Over and over, the Netflix series swings wildly into histrionics territory, finding itself further and further away from its genre ambitions. By the end, it’s chaotically overcooked.