- Date of Release: 21 April 2023
- Genre: Documentary, Reality, Romance
- Language: English
- Watch On: Netflix
Indian Matchmaking Season 3
Introduction
Onto the next release of the weekend and our favourite guilty pleasure is back! With that, I finished watching the third season of Indian Matchmaking on Netflix which definitely did spring a surprise in its first season. Netflix has been constantly dabbling with different kinds of content even in the Reality TV space. So while you would see shows like Too Hot To Handle or IRL, one of the shows which did click partifularly in its first season was Indian Matchmaking. A unique concept of a matchmaker trodding tge globe to find the perfect matches for singles around the world did catch the eye of the viewers. In my opinion, the demographic was split across two groups – the 25 to 45 age group who were single and waiting to find partners, and the age group of 50 plus, featuring parents looking for suitable matches for their children. That did cause a tsunami as far as the TRP(or equivalent of a webshow) of the show was concerned in the first season.
But most of the hype around the show did die down particularly with the show being called out for being borderline regressive with the matchmaker highlighting to compromise to every single she was meeting. Also, the freshness of its concept soon faded away into a stagnant second season which was watchable but had nothing new to offer with things getting repetitive. And I did fear the same with the third season of Indian Matchmaking. Does it rise above the ashes or does it flatter to deceive again, lets find out.
The Good
The show is essentially divided into two halves here in terms of the quality of the content. The first half featuring the first four episodes did have quite a few moments wherein you were involved in the journey of the individuals. Some hanging threads from the last season did pick up from the same point here and I was honestly quite involved in their journeys. I did feel that the personality of a few new guests on the show were also interesting that did fuel the narrative ahead.
From the technical standpoint, one quick observation was on how the conversations weren’t allowed to linger on forever like in the second season. The narrative was fast with ample amounts of sharp edits that constantly gave an impression that the show was looking to gather the impetus of just focusing on the journeys of the guests as opposed to divulging into their conversations. This until the final four episodes began!
The Not so Good
One of the main aspects of why the second season did not work was that the stakes of the show were never raised. In fact, as late as the seventh episode(in Season 2), you had new guests entering the frame that just did not give the viewers enough time to invest in them and their journey. What I thought was tackled rather well and corrected in the first half of the third season, did come back and haunt the show yet again, leading up to its downfall!
The conversations and journeys of the new guests felt rather plastic and uneventful that I was prompted to just pause the show every now and then. Some of the most interesting bits of the first half were surprisingly discarded in the second half, wherein the entire show came crashing down and how! The same mistakes of the previous season were committed all over again and I wasn’t quite impressed by it one bit! The focused narration was the need of the hour which did go for a toss here.
My Take
My honest take is that this show may once have been a guilty pleasure, but now it is slowly turning into an overkill. The proceedings seem repetitive and there is absolutely nothing new to even expect a miracle on the show. The stakes really need to be increased or else there is absolutely no need to green light its next season. It is just about watchable but the charm of the first season which did focus only a handful of guests at a time is missing now.
Conclusion
The third season of Indian Matchmaking might be a guilty pleasure but the burning question is for how long? With no new innovations, and the stakes being low, this season is meh, just meh! Available on Netflix.