Tooth Pari Series Review: This Twilight with a twist is riddled with missteps

Imagine this situation. You see a couple leaving a hotel bar together, and checking into a room for some intimacy. We sense there is something off about this scenario. Be it the camera angles, the unnecessarily upbeat music, or just their body language, we understand the girl is in danger. Soon enough, the couple's embrace turns deadly with teeth turning into fangs, and a neck turning bloody. It is then we realise that she is not in danger, but she is the danger. She later calls her girlfriend Sreela, who is a fellow sanguisuga, and feeds on the unconscious man. At the outset, they might be two women who hunt down a man and bring him to a vulnerable position, but they aren't exactly bad people. Rumi (Tanya Maniktala) is also a vampire who only just enough blood to not kill the human. As the girls leave, they speak about sneaking into this territory of humans, their pathos, and what makes this world a picnic trip for them.

Creator: Pratim D Gupta

Cast: Shantanu Maheshwari, Tanya Maniktala, Tillotama Shome, Adil Hussain, Revathy, Sikander Kher

Streamer: Netflix

Off to a promising start, Tooth Pari, which is set in Kolkata, soon establishes the central love story, which is very similar to Twilight with a twist. Rumi, who is of archaic age, survives in her youthful appearance. She is a vampire with a bitter past and suffers loss during her human tenure, which is similar to Rosalie Cullen's plight in Stephenie Meyer’s novel. There is also a yearning for a baby, and betrayed emotions in the play, to name a few. Rumi lives with her coven in what they call as Neeche (referring to the world under), and comes to Upar (above) where humans reside to hunt for their simple diet of blood. And as it happens, a hunt goes wrong, and one of Rumi’s vampire canines breaks and falls apart. This leads to a chance meeting with human dentist Bikram Roy (Shantanu Maheshwari), and the series is about the romance brewing between the two over several meetings.

What gets Tooth Pari brownie points is the character setup. With a stellar cast including Adil Hussain as AD, a man striking a balance between the world, Revathy as Luna Luka, a woman practicing Wicca craft and part of Cutmundus (a cult to expose the vampires), Tillotama Shome as vampire Meera, Sikander Kher as Inspector Kartik, Tooth Pari brings best of several worlds by intertwining multiple genres. There is an investigation thriller with Kartik trying to identify the owner of the canine and nearly cracking the world of blood-sucking creatures, a love story between a vampire and a chef in disguise of a dentist, and some drama as few vampires have hidden agendas among themselves. Tooth Pari takes its sweet time to establish several threads, thanks to its series format. But do these threads have a payoff? Unfortunately, not so much. For example, it is very difficult to root for the star-crossed lovers when we don’t really see any excitement as they hit off, apart from the time when Rumi gives an Alpenliebe advert sort of reaction when she tastes Roy’s blood for the first time. There is very little to suggest these two should end up together. Despite acting powerhouses like Revathy and Tilottama being part of the cast, they don't really get to do anything. Tooth Pari is in a hurry to create a world of its own that it loses to add a touch of charm and flavour to the premise it is building.

The makers of Tooth Pari try to leave a few open endings, by bringing the past of Rumi, that one weapon that might bring these blood-suckers back to the screen, along with the love story of Rumi and Roy to start from square one. But are these enough to pull you back to watch season two? Well... from what we've seen, it doesn't quite have its teeth in the game.