The third season of City Of Dreams starts from the same point where the second season had ended. And a quick recall being that it had ended on a cliffhanger. The story at its core does follow the journey of Poornima Gaikwad in her quest to attain her lost power once again. The story here is decent but not as layered as its first two seasons. The screenplay standing at 9 episodes of 40 odd minutes each does make for a decently compelling watch which definitely has some standout moments. Having said that, the writing isn’t quite layered and it barely scratches the surface.

The drama does open on a slightly wrong foot in my opinion. The entire premise of the disappearance of the protagonist only to be found later on was slightly more stretched than it should have been. And I say that because it takes the main plot that much more time to start while the premise does just enough to have some bearing on the main plot. Had this sequence been slightly shorter, it would have given the main plot that much more time to develop while allowing the viewers more time to (re)invest in the characters. While this premise is on, some of the subplots are kickstarted parallelly that do hold your attention to begin with. It is almost after the third episode when the real ‘game’ begins and there are multiple contenders to the throne.

The proceedings are fairly interesting and compelling but if you have been following the previous seasons, then you would know that the writing isn’t as sharp or layered. It just about scratches the surface without quite going as deep as it should, otherwise. And this has also to do with the characterization wherein most characters are one-dimensional barring a handful. There are moments which are generated throughout the series that makes for some interesting events including a reference to the recent ‘political thriller’ in Maharashtra which was always going to be a winner of a subplot. And the drama is consistently watchable, but ideally I would have liked a little more mind games and twists and turns as opposed to a predictable watch.

The power tussle does make for an interesting watch with some elements of humour added. I did realise that this was the most amount of humour which was added across three seasons and honestly the entire journalism angle definitely does work, a profession which has now become a bit of a joke. But, some of the subplots do not have the required bite and they don’t quite add meat to the main plot. I did enjoy some of the character dynamics here including the ever-changing bond between the protagonist and her wily father and that does result in a good payback at the end although it was a tad too simplistic. But credit to the writers for ending the season on a satisfactory note which may well be the end of the franchise too. Overall, the screenplay is a bit of a mixed bag, good in parts but too simplistic to truly allow the drama to bloom.