There are enough threads left to weave a Season 4, hopefully without the dark clouds hovering over Phulera, observes Deepa Gahlot.
The fictional village of Phulera in UP, where TVF's Panchayat is set, is a fairy-tale village, untouched by the lawlessness, casteism and misogyny that marks so much of rural North India.
It made the viewer wish all Indian villages were so clean, had smile-inducing slogans painted on the walls; where the biggest problems were a pot-holed road and an occasional power outage.
It was in this rustic paradise that Abhishek Tripathi (Jitendra Kumar), an engineering graduate, had arrived, accepting a low-paying job as the panchayat secretary, to get some work experience as he prepared for the MBA entrance exam. He is thrown into the deep end of village life, but in the process discovers friendship, loyalty and maybe, love.
The first two seasons (in 2020 and 2022) were slice-of-life comedies, in which Writer Chandan Kumar and Director Deepak Kumar Mishra, created humour out of everyday situations.
The Pradhan of the village is Manju Devi (Neena Gupta), a figurehead, elected to the position because of the women's reservation in panchayats.
As is the case in so many places, her husband, Brij Bhushan Dubey (Raghubir Yadav) is the de facto headman, and is addressed as Pradhanji by everyone.
There is no judgment over this practice, it is accepted and gently lampooned.
However, over two seasons, the illiterate Manju Devi, who did not even know the national anthem, has become a bit more assertive. In Season 3, she uses her power and her voice a lot more.
Prahlad Pandey (Faisal Malik), the deputy Pradhan, and the office assistant, Vikas (Chandan Roy) form Abhishek aka Sachivji's inner circle.
Then there's the Pradhan's daughter Rinki (Sanvikaa), with whom Abhishek has a reluctant and chaste romance.
At the end of the second season, two major events took place, Abhishek was transferred by the vengeful MLA, Chandrakishore Singh (Pankaj Jha), and Prahlad's soldier son was killed at the battlefront, which was a surprisingly tragic turn for the usually sunny series to take.
Season 3 picks up from there, with Abhishek thinking about his future and trying to avoid his new posting to Bhaypura, and a grieving Prahlad lying in a drunken stupor.
Meanwhile, in a hilarious first episode, the Pradhan and Vikas's pals try to get his transfer reversed by preventing the new incumbent from joining.
They succeed in their plan, but make an enemy out of the MLA, and this bad blood then runs through the remaining episodes.
It takes away somewhat from the appealing simplicity of the previous seasons, in which laugh-out-loud comedy was generated from mundane incidents like an arrogant groom demanding Abhishek's fancy office chair, or a villager insisting that the newly-installed CCTV camera be used to trace his missing goat.
There is one such episode here, before it all dissolves into political rivalry -- an old woman (Abha Sharma) pretends that her son has thrown her out of the house, so that she becomes eligible for a rural housing scheme for the homeless.
This small deception in which Abhishek and the Dubeys get involved, gives a chance to Dubey's rival Bhushan (Durgesh Kumar) and his ambitious wife Kranti Devi (Sunita Rajwar), to launch an attack, with the backing of the MLA. He has troubles of his own and is seething against Phulera.
The series still retains its light touch and whimsicality, but every other show uses the corrupt MLA stereotype, and one hoped Panchayat would stay away from evil and violence.
On the other hand, for how long could Phulera retain its innocence -- the big, bad world was bound to come bumping in over the craters of the village road.
The strength of the series is its cast -- the main actors have got into the spirit of their parts by now, but it is the smaller characters, who add to the charm like the cunning old woman hoping to buck the system, the bird-seller Bam Bahadur (Amit Kumar Maurya), who is willing to take on the MLA's goons, and the arrogant groom from the first season (Asif Khan), who returns for a visit and carries out a crucial mission.
There are enough threads left to weave a Season 4, hopefully without the dark clouds hovering over Phulera -- the show is like an antidote to all the real-world wickedness.
Panchayat 3 streams on Amazon Prime Video.
