Zee 5’s latest offering, The Broken News looks like a spin-off and satirical take upon its notorious news channel Zee News. The TRP war has turned the mushrooming news channels in India into some hawker street vendors, each trying to hustle and sell you something. Interestingly instead of taking a satirical comedy path, the show has crime and thrill as major themes of the show.

Sonali Bendre and Jaideep Ahlawat head two different news channels that are poles apart in terms of their news content. One still believes in true journalism based upon facts while another in selling news like a commodity with all the spices. The rivalry between these two channels to become a top channels in the nation forms the premise of the series. Despite having such an interesting premise show ultimately turns into a run-of-the-mill thriller dealing with all major current events. It’s nice to see the show deals with real issues of the country from the polls, mass lynching, #MeToo, cyber monitoring, etc. instead of fictional events and names.

The show heavily depends upon the performance of Jaideep. His sheer acting talent is a major saving grace for this otherwise mediocre thriller. Instead of focusing upon one major theme, the series diverges into many subplots to introduce thrill elements and ultimately turns into another run-of-the-mill thriller.

Overall, due to performances by the lead specially Jaideep, the series is interesting for the most part.