Ziddi Ishq Review
Director: Raj Chakraborty
Date Created: 2025-11-21 19:12
1.5
Ziddi Ishq Review: Directed by Raj Chakraborty, featuring an ensemble cast in Aaditi Pohankar, Sumeet Vyas, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Barkha Bisht, Riya Sen and others, and it is streaming currently on JioHotstar. The seven-episode series clocks just about half an hour each. The show seemed promising, more so because it was adapted from Parineeta. But having begun to watch, it soon transpired that this series, with a pedigree cast and creators, labours hard to find coherence, tone, or emotional depth.
Ziddi Ishq Review
It follows Mehul, who grows up nursing a deep admiration-and eventually one-sided love-for her tuition teacher, Shekhar Da. After he dies by suicide following a molestation allegation, Mehul spirals into a quest for revenge by uncovering secrets she was never prepared to face. On paper, it sounded like a tight psychological thriller, but what unfolds is a tonally inconsistent ride which keeps losing grip on logic further into the show.
I don’t know for what reason, but honestly, I did expect JioHotstar Series Ziddi Ishq to be an intense show of emotional turmoil; maybe even a sensitive glance at just how obsession warps the mind. The problem is that the storytelling is all over the place and melodramatic to such an extreme that it’s hard to take any of this seriously. Rather than let Mehul’s emotional state develop organically, the show plunges her into extreme behaviours right from the word go. Her transformation feels so sudden and exaggerated that it’s almost impossible to empathize with her journey.
The series wants us to feel the turbulence of unrequited love, but it never earned that emotional investment. The relationship that Mehul shares with Shekhar Da is hardly explored with the nuance needed for viewers to understand why she goes into such wild lengths after his death. Without that foundation, her actions are nothing short of random and often unnecessarily chaotic. For a story fuelled by obsession, the emotional beats feel surprisingly hollow.
One thing that almost immediately stands out is how the series just keeps ramping up conflicts for shock value alone. There are scenes in this show that really do feel made in hopes of creating some buzz rather than furthering an actual storyline. Instead of suspense, these moments brought out laughter-sometimes unintentional, sometimes just in disbelief. The writing sets up situations promising revelation or tension but then resolves them in empty or melodramatic ways.
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Even more jolting, though, are the stylistic flourishes that come with action sequences popping out of nowhere or emotional breakdowns staged for maximum melodrama. At one point, it leans so far into absurdity that all sense of seriousness is lost. This is where it gets tough to write the review for Ziddi Ishq without sounding judgmental, but there is no getting away from how this show sometimes tries a bit too hard to appear intense.
Unfortunately, despite such a powerhouse cast, there is hardly any emotional anchorage that the characters get. Aaditi Pohankar is indeed fierce and committed to her role, but seldom does the writing give her room to be truly vulnerable. Mehul often ends up appearing erratic instead of emotionally torn, stripping away any sense of connection between her and the audience.
Parambrata Chattopadhyay is his usual calm self while playing Shekhar Da, but even he can’t raise a role that barely scratches the surface of who this character is. Sumeet Vyas surprises by feeling so out of place in a villainous role devoid of depth. Barkha Bisht and Riya Sen can be serviceable but are ultimately too constrained by generally weak writing and weird motivations for their respective characters. The whole ensemble feels wasted.
Ultimately, the reason JioHotstar’s Ziddi Ishq doesn’t work is because it never holds onto a coherent narrative thread. Every time you think this show is trying to say something, it actually cuts into yet another melodramatic sequence. The mix of corporate politics, tragic romance, and revenge often feels disjointed, as if the series has been putting together various genres without understanding any of them.
All these extra detours bury the central mystery of Shekhar Da’s life and death rather than using it as the backbone for the plot. Even the pacing suffers because of the added filler scenes; some episodes drag and some rush pivotal moments. By the time the final episode closed, I felt confused rather than satisfied.
Ziddi Ishq Review: Summing Up
If I had to summarise Ziddi Ishq, I’d say they shouldn’t have made this series in the first place. The emotional arc is unearned, the storyline isn’t really that layered, and the narrative is just so over-the-top at all times-these components make a viewing really tedious. I walked in hoping for an intense story of love gone wrong, but what I got instead was an inconsistent, often unintentionally comical attempt at psychological drama.
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