24/India

24 is an Indian television series based on the American series of the same name, made in the Hindi language. The show, written by Rensil D'Silva and directed by Abhinay Deo, stars 24 season 8 actor Anil Kapoor, also a producer, in the lead role. 24 premiered on October 4, 2013 on the Viacom-owned Colors channel, airing twice-weekly, and concluded on December 21, 2013. Set in Mumbai, India, the series is a close adaptation of the first season of 24, following Anti Terrorist Unit (ATU) director Jai Singh Rathod's efforts to thwart the assassination of Indian Prime Minister candidate Aditya Singhania, while his own family comes under threat from the perpetrators.

The first season of 24 was a massive success, garnering accolades and high viewership. A second season, after many delays, began filming in November 2015 and will air two episodes per week from July 23 to October 9, 2016.

Cast

• Anil Kapoor as Jai Singh Rathod, based on Jack Bauer
• Neil Bhoopalam as Aditya Singhania, India's youngest candidate for Prime Minister, based on David Palmer
• Sapna Pabbi as Kiran Rathod, Jai and Trisha's daughter, based on Kim Bauer
• Anita Raaj as Naina Singhania, Aditya's mother and head of a political dynasty
• Raghav Chanana as Prithvi Singhania, Aditya's cousin and advisor
• Shabana Azmi as ATU official Abhilasha Grewal, based on Alberta Green
• Adhish Khanna as Veer Singh Rathod, Jai and Trisha's son

Season 1

• Mandira Bedi as Nikita Rai, ATU's second-in-command, based on Nina Myers and who later assumes responsibilities similar to Michelle Dessler. (season 1)
• Tisca Chopra as Trisha Rathod, based on Teri Bauer
• Shivani Tanksale as Divya Singhania, Aditya's sister
• Adhir Bhatt as Tejpal Singh, ATU's third-in-command, based on Tony Almeida
• Yuri Suri as Gill, based on George Mason
• Nikkitasha Marwaha as Mehr, based on Mandy
• Rajat Kaul as Max Ferraro, based on Jonathan Matijevich
• Priyanshu Cora as Rohit, based on Rick Allen
• Kiran Srinivas as Dev, based on Dan Mounts
• Anupam Kher as Wasim Khan, based on Richard Walsh
• Shivkumar Subramaniam as Kamaljit Sood, based on Ryan Chappelle
• Rahul Khanna as suspect Tarun Khosla, based on Ted Cofell
• Aradhana Jagota as Jhanvi Gupta, based on Janet York
• Ajinkya Deo as Abhay / Karthik Chandrasekharan, based on Alan York / Kevin Carroll
• Suchitra Pillai-Malik as Mehek Ahuja, based on Maureen Kingsley
• Ankur Vikal as Yakub Sayeed, based on Ira Gaines
• Kishore Kadam as Ravindran, based on Victor Drazen
• Nikunj Malik as Simran, based on Melanie (Day 1)
• Pooja Ruparel as Pooja Bharadwaj, based on Patty Brooks
• Bikramjeet Kanwarpal (credited sometimes as Major Bikramjeet) as SFG Agent Pradhan, based on Aaron Pierce
• Dibyendu Bhattacharya as Raja, based on Andre Drazen
• Shahnawaz Pradhan as KK, based on Carl Webb
• Faiza Jalali as Jiah, based on Jamey Farrell
• Nissar Khan as Murad Ali, based on Mark DeSalvo
• Gurpreet Saini as Mihir, based on Milo Pressman
• Rajeev Siddhartha as Bala, based on Alexis Drazen
• Guarev Bakshi as Agent Kabir, an agent who assists Jai Singh with the rescue of his family
• Richa Chadda as Sapna, based on Lauren Proctor
• Rahul Singh as Vikrant Maurya, Aditya's brother-in-law
• Gandhi as an ATU field agent based on Bundy
• Additional uncredited actors portrayed Shaina (based on Bridgit) and Sahil, an informant based on Scott Baylor

Season 2

• Angad Bedi
• Surveen Chawla as a character based on Claudia Hernandez
• Harsh Chhaya
• Sumit Kaul
• Amruta Khanvilkar
• Sikander Kher as Haroon Sherchan, based on Hector Salazar
• Rajesh Khera
• Sudhanshu Pandey
• Nana Patekar as the narrator
• Ronit Roy
• Karanvir Sharma as Raj Singh Bhakta, an ATU agent
• Sakshi Tanwar
• Madhurima Tulli
• Ashish Vidyarthi as Roshan Sherchan, based on Ramon Salazar
• Prerna Wanvari

Crew

• Directors for the first season were Nitya Mehra, Abhinay Deo and Renzil D'Silva. The production was also supervised by director Manish Sharma. The action director for the show was Allan Amin, who received no credit for his part on the show.
• Renzil D'Silva also served as principal show writer with other writers Milap Zaveri, Priya Pinto, Bhavani Iyer and Niranjan Ivyengar. Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran were credited as original creators of the material and original 24 writers Howard Gordon, Michael Chernuchin, Lawrence Hertzog, Maurice Hurley, Chip Johannessen, Michael Loceff, Andrea Newman and Virgil Williams also had occasional episodes credited to them due to the show borrowing key episode story lines from the first two seasons of the US version. Sanaullah Khan and Sagar.Bhanushali were line producers for the show. Acclaimed writer Javed Akhtar also penned an uncredited speech spoken by Aditya on the show.[1]
• Executive producers for the show included Howard Gordon, Udayan Bhat and Apurba Sengupta with Anil Kapoor producing and Jessu George as producer for the Colors channel. Imagine Television was also credited as an executive producer for the show. RDP Television was also listed as a co-producer for some episodes.
• Music consisted of reused original music by Sean Callery as well as additional music by Guarev Godkhindi and former sound mixer Mark Fulgado.
• Directors of Photography were Jay Oza and Tanay Satam. shamshad live tv

Differences from the original

Season 1

Promotional poster for the first season's premiere

For the most part, the series closely hews to the plot of the American series, substituting Mumbai for Los Angeles and featuring the fictional Anti Terrorist Unit. There are a number of significant changes from the American series:

• Names, places, and nationalities are adjusted to reflect the new setting. The primary antagonists are members of a Tamil separatist group called the LTFE, inspired by the real-life Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE for short, commonly referred to as the "Tamil Tigers") in Sri Lanka. The LTFE leader, Ravindran, and his sons Raja and Bala play a similar role as Victor Drazen and his sons in the original first season.
• The political story arc, which followed David Palmer discovering a cover-up perpetrated by his own wife and children, is entirely rewritten; Singhania is unmarried, and instead contends with a scandal involving his mother and siblings that is directly connected to the threat against his life. Over the course of the season, it is revealed that Aditya's brother-in-law, as well as one of his family members - his mother, cousin Prithvi, or sister Divya - is in league with the masterminds of the assassination attempt. In the finale, Divya is exposed as the inside connection and arrested.[2]
• Aditya has only one press secretary, Pooja, who appears to have parts of Patty Brooks, Elizabeth Nash and Jessica Abrams written into her role- but unlike Patty, she does not spy or have feelings for Aditya, and like Elizabeth, was secretly seeing Bala (the Alexis Drazen role equivalent).
• The journalist Mehek Ahuja, based on Maureen Kingsley, also has elements of Dr George Ferragamo, being in touch longer with the Singhania family (one of whom was her source of the story), and actively trying to push the story, although her motivation is different- and eventually getting killed before coming on air with the story.
• The Jonathan Matijevich character has no name, even in credits, and a longer role to play, beyond the first attempt on Aditya's life. He then kills Mehek Ahuja under orders from Aditya's aunt, then attempts to kill Trisha and Kiran in the safehouse. He also does most of the work otherwise done by Jovan Myovic, whose counterpart appears briefly in only two episodes, one being the final.
• The Nina Myers character, Nikita Rai, is not revealed to be an enemy agent, instead serving loyally throughout the season. The Jamey Farrell character, Jiah, is the only mole inside ATU, and takes her own life after being arrested. This also means Nikita will continue working with ATU in season two, probably taking over the role given to Michelle Dessler in the original.
• This show does not have a character directly based on Mike Novick, as a result of the structure and background of Aditya's family and associates being changed so heavily. Much of his work is initially done by Prithvi, Aditya's cousin, with an original character, CBI Agent Bhagwat, to carry forward his work later on.
• The make-up and outcome of Jack Bauer's family are altered. Rathod has a teenage son, Veer, enrolled at a military academy, in addition to a daughter. Beginning in "Day 1: 3:00pm-4:00pm," the family's story begins to diverge from the original - Trisha and Kiran manage to kill the assassin sent to kill them at the safe house, while Veer assumes a similar role to Kim Bauer in the latter half of Season 1, being mistakenly arrested for a drug deal and then kidnapped by the engineers of the assassination threat.
• Rathod's wife, Trisha, is hospitalized late in the season and dies during the season finale, mirroring Teri Bauer's death at the end of Season 1.

Season 2

Season 2 of 24 will be loosely based on the third season of the original series.

Production

Kapoor acquired the rights to 24 from Fox and 24 executive producer Howard Gordon through his production company, Anil Kapoor Film Co. after Gordon introduced him to Fox's head of international television, Marion Edwards. In April 2013, Bollywood screenwriter Rensil D'Silva and director Abhinay Deo were announced as the series' writer and director. The series is filmed on location in Mumbai, India.

The size and scope of the production was described as unprecedented for Indian television. Colors CEO Raj Nayak said that 24 was "going to be one of our big scale budgeted shows - as big as one of our non-fiction reality shows," while Kapoor stated that "there will be scenes with hundreds of thousands of people." In addition, Kapoor noted that Fox personnel participated in the production with the hope of replicating "the same kind of work culture and value systems that I experienced during my stint on 24."

Kiefer Sutherland, who remained in contact with Kapoor after they starred together in Season 8, expressed interest in appearing on the new series in a cameo role as his Jack Bauer character.

Overseas airings or lack thereof

While Colors does have international versions available on satellite and cable television that air their programmes with subtitles near to transmission date, the show has not yet been aired outside India due to "right issues" that a Colors spokesman hoped would be resolved at some point.

The episodes were available online through the Colors website, but in Hindi only.

External links

• Official Indian website
• Official UK website
• Official Hindi-language trailer
• 24 at Wikipedia
• 24 at the Internet Movie Database