The Final Call, released in 2019, has a star-studded cast with Arjun Rampal in the lead and Sakshi Tanwar, Javed Jaffrey, Neeraj Kabi in supporting roles.

The series starts with an intriguing premise. A pilot wants to commit suicide on board. We see flashes of his life and try to decode what led him to take this decision. 

The narrative of the story is divided into two parts. The current timeline runs parallel to the flashback scenes. We understand how each character reacts or acts on the basis of the information provided by their respective history.

Scenes alternate from the cockpit, which is where we see Captain Karan and his co-pilot Abhimanyu, to the passenger's aisle where we meet Siddharth, Krishnamurthy, Dhruv and Sarah. Siddharth and Sarah are entranced by Krishnamurthy, who is an astrologer. Krishnamurthy helps answer their philosophical questions and adds a spiritual element to the show's theme.

One of the leading female characters is Kiran Mirza. She is the head of Air Traffic Control, Mumbai. We see her expertly negotiate situations and easily handle pressure. For Kiran, her work and profession is of utmost importance.

The show is fast paced at the beginning. But as the episodes progress, more attention is provided to flashbacks and as a result the main plot of a possible hijack situation gets stagnant. Kiran and Karan’s backgrounds are important because the plot twists were dependent on them but the passenger’s history is only provided to create empathy and to get the audience invested in their fates.

I personally felt indifferent to the passenger’s emotions because they had no control or power to change their situation. They are either survivors or victims. While other main characters' nuances in mood and personality could make strategic changes in the course of the story.

I also felt stretching out the story into 8 episodes of almost 40 minutes each contributed to the continuous decrease in the pace. Too many flashbacks diluted the strength of the hit that climax wanted to offer.

In comparison with the book, the character of Tyagi is a new addition. Other than using this character’s backstory to increase the run time of a few episodes, there was no important role Tyagi played. It makes you question the planning of this show.

In a lot of scenes it is obvious that technical research was not done properly. Kale, the anti-terrorisim-squad leader, makes the wrong decisions and most of his strategies to fix the situation are downright harmful and counterintuitive to de-escalating a situation which could save the lives of the passengers. 

The supernatural element dilutes the appeal that a suspense thriller creates. The audience is introduced to a lot of confusion with the constant transfer from reality to fiction.

In all, the premise was well-built and new but too much unnecessary information ruined the story. Personally I believe this would have been a great 2 hour movie rather than almost a six hour long web-series.

Rating-2.5/5