India’s OTT boom has produced some brilliant crime content, but also some costly failures. Big names, big budgets, and a popular genre were not enough to save these five series from poor writing, weak execution, and heavy criticism.
Images: IMDb
India’s OTT boom has produced some brilliant crime content. It has also produced a fair share of failures. These five Indian crime series drew heavy criticism from both critics and viewers.
Director Rohit Shetty made his OTT debut with this seven-episode series starring Sidharth Malhotra as Delhi Police officer Kabir Malik chasing a terrorist named Zarar. The result was widely considered a disaster.
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On Rotten Tomatoes, Indian Police Force scored just 17% from critics. Social media flooded with criticism, with many calling it the worst series ever made in India.
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Critics noted the screenplay never went beyond a bullet-point level scene order, with dialogues so flat and outdated that the show competed with the old television serial CID in terms of coherence. The proceedings were described as so banal that viewers were not invested even when an important character died on screen.
The show was set in Delhi but failed at every front including accents, streets, and production design. No second season has been announced.
Director Ali Abbas Zafar’s political crime drama starred Saif Ali Khan and Dimple Kapadia and had nine episodes. It became one of the most controversial Indian OTT releases ever.
IMDb users rated Tandav just 3.8 out of 10. Critics found the writing shallow. Reviewers described it as stylish yet simplistic, with the makers barely managing to scratch the surface of their characters by choosing masala over meaningful storytelling.
The show also triggered major legal trouble. More than three FIRs were registered against the makers and cast across multiple cities for allegedly hurting Hindu religious sentiments. The Bombay High Court granted transit pre-arrest bail to director Zafar, Amazon Prime India’s head, the producer, and the writer. The makers issued an unconditional apology and implemented changes to the series. The show did not return for a second season.
This crime drama had Rana Daggubati and real-life uncle Venkatesh. The show is an Indian remake of the American series Ray Donovan. Rana plays a Mumbai-based fixer for celebrities whose life is disrupted when his father gets out of prison.
The performances of Rana and Venkatesh were let down by writing issues and a lengthy runtime. Critics at Scroll.in noted the show had more expletives than nouns or verbs. Viewers pointed out sub-plots that were too shallow, pacing that swung between too slow and too fast, and sub-plots that failed to connect at the right moments.
A reviewer described Season 1 as populist and provocative for its own sake, with a look-at-sex-gore-expletives rhythm, calling it like watching a celebrity gossip column posing as an action thriller. The show returned for a second season in 2025, which also received a mixed reception.
Directed by Aditya Datt, this eight-episode Hindi crime thriller starred Gulshan Devaiah in a double role as twin brothers, one a cop and the other a criminal. Anurag Kashyap played a supporting role.
Critics described the show as generic, calling the twin-brother trope less evolved than a 1995 Bollywood film. Fans called it an overly hurried, middling thriller. Viewers on IMDb called it predictable with good casting that failed to add any value to poor narration. The series was an adaptation from a 2017 German show and ran for only one season.
Directed by Apoorva Lakhia, this spy-crime thriller starred Saqib Saleem as a RAW agent. The show ran for eight episodes on Voot Select.
Critics noted the show loses steam midway as a host of characters keep coming, making an already complex screenplay even more crowded. A broader critical summary called it a disappointment that picked bits from popular international thrillers to build its plot points.
The show did return for a second season in 2023 on JioCinema.
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