Human — the new Hotstar Specials series, with Shefali Shah (Delhi Crime) and Kirti Kulhari (Four More Shots Please!) in the lead — is set in the murky world of medical malpractice and unethical drug trials. Naturally, this hits different during an ongoing pandemic in its third year now and with a third wave sweeping across the country.
(In fact, Human acknowledges its existence multiple times — including a pharma boss complaining how the trials for their unapproved COVID vaccine brought them to their knees — though it’s treated like a thing of the past.) The Disney+ Hotstar series might be distressing for those very reasons, as constantly being in and around doctors, hospitals, the sick, injections, and ambulances can be triggering for a lot of people these days.
And more troublingly, some might construe Human as fodder for how vaccines are unsafe. I can already imagine clips of the Disney+ Hotstar series circulating online: “Oh, look at what practices doctors and pharma giants engage in.” Or maybe I’m not giving audiences enough due. This isn’t exactly Human’s fault, but the new Hotstar Specials does feel inadvertently ill-timed.
On top of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Human — created and directed by Shefali’s husband Vipul Amrutlal Shah (Aankhen) and Mozez Singh (Zubaan), with the latter writing the Disney+ Hotstar series alongside Ishani Banerjee (Aligarh) — can be a lot to take. It’s a morbid and depressing tale through and through. There’s no seeming light at the end of the tunnel nor any sparks of hope in any corner. At least it’s tonally consistent, so points for that. But it also tends to drag — I’ve seen seven of the total 10 episodes — and is over-reliant on plot in lieu of rich character scenes.