Uncanny valley is a psychological phenomenon where something looks almost human, but isn’t quite human, different enough to be eerie and unsettling. It is a common trope in horror. Shaque isn’t quite horror. Yet, all its characters fall into this category, for none of them seems to know what a real, breathing human being looks or behaves like. They act like caricatures of humans created by someone with only a surface-level understanding of the human race. The end result is a show that is so bad that it hardly has any redeeming qualities, save for the occasional acting performance.
Apart from the production values, everything in Shaque screams cringe TV, be it the way the scenes are shot or the way each episode begins with a 10-second rewind of the previous episode’s cliffhanger. The series opens with Anvita’s infant being stolen. It is arguably among the worst things a woman can endure. Yet, the moment barely registers. Such is the show’s disconnect with emotions. That sets the tone, sadly, and Shaque never recovers. This is a TV show disguised as a web series. This would have been tolerable had it been done in a smart fashion. But Shaque brings TV’s melodrama, minus its emotional connect. If you can sense the twist in a seven-episode show by the third episode, either you watch a lot of this genre or the makers are clearly not doing their job right. Here, the second one holds true. In the saturated crime thriller genre, makers face an increasingly difficult challenge of staying ahead of the audience. But as Knives Out films have shown very recently, it is very much possible. Shaque fails in that endeavour. The red herrings are so obvious that you want to laugh at that attempt at misdirection. There is simply no subtlety with every statement, every change in expression, and every pause magnified to an extent that you wonder if the makers underestimate the audience’s comprehension.
The show is centred on Parineeti, making her web series debut with Shaque. Yet, the show barely gives her any chance to shine. It doesn’t help that the actor herself struggles to grasp the enormity of emotional upheaval her character endures. Throughout the show, Parineeti struggles to strike the right balance between restraint and histrionics, leaning a bit too far on both sides. Jennifer Winget largely nails her role, but almost always despite the script. She, too, falls prey to going over the top at times, though. Yet, she remains earnest and natural more than others. Anup Soni gets a signature good cop role, which he plays deftly, barring that atrocious Punjabi accent thrown in for no good reason. Even the veteran Soni Razdan feels underutilised here. Harleen gets her fair share of moments, but her character remains undercooked. In a welcome (of sorts) gender reversal, the men in the show largely support the women, to the point that they have little identity, character, or distinguishing features. Sumeet Vyas is the only one to leave some mark in what can only be described as an extended cameo.
Shaque seems to be the logical conclusion of Indian streaming clinging to tired tropes and cliched formulas, hoping to make something watchable, or rather saleable from that. It is a reminder that no number of algorithms and spreadsheets can replace creativity and solid storytelling. The only mystery is how this was even greenlit.
