Aarya is an Indian crime drama web television series co-created by Ram Madhvani and Sandeep Modi based on the Dutch drama series :nl:Penoza|Penoza by Pieter Bart Korthuis for Hotstar's label Hotstar Specials starring Sushmita Sen in the titular role. The show is produced by Endemol Shine India and Madhavani's Ram Madhavani Films. The series is co-directed by Ram Madhvani, Sandeep Modi and Vinod Rawat which was released on 19 June 2020.
in January 2019 announced its aspirations to enter into original content production exclusively for the service. STAR India, the parent company of Hotstar tapped many Indian filmmakers including Ram Madhvani for creating the shows for its label called Hotstar Specials. In 2011, Madhvani started working to adapt the Dutch Dutch drama series :nl:Penoza|Penoza as a Feature film. In 2013, for reasons unknown the film was shelved a month before it was scheduled to film. In 2019, the feature was changed in format for Television and developed for Hotstar Specials.
Filming
The principal photography started in December 2019 at Jaipur in Rajasthan. Sushmita Sen announced about her second innings on Instagram in the same month. Production on the show was wrapped on March 15,2020.
Post Production
As the show was scheduled for June 2020 release, makers had two months for post production work to be completed. However on March 2020, India entered lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. All the editing, VFX, sound mixing and dubbing has been done from team's respective homes. Madhvani called it as an Excel Sheet Nightmare as the team has to go through an scheduled Excel sheet to check if they have done that work or not everyday. According to Madhvani a team of 50 people worked on the post production 18 hours a day and had connected through Zoom or Google Chats for the collaboration and lags had been a big issue for them to judge the sound correctly. Dubbing has been also a major issue according to Madhvani as the cast were scattered through out the globe. Jayant Kripalani was in Kolkata dubbing for his role during and Namit Das dubbed at 3 am when all his dogs were quiet.
Release
reported the show has scheduled to premiere on 29 March 2020 on Hotstar concurrent with the launch of Disney+ in India through its corporate sibling. However, the show premiered on Hotstar on 19 June 2020.
Promotion
The first teaser was released by the streamer on 2 June 2020. The full trailer was released on 5 June 2020.
Critical reception
Season one of the show received positive reviews. Rahul Desai from Film Companion said, "Sen is the pivot of an excellent cast that, despite a brief lull in the middle overs, maintains the rhythm. The narrative fleetingly dips its toes into the hidden homes of each character. This gives each of the talented actors – otherwise underutilized by the Hindi-film ecosystem – a chance to shine." Shubhra Gupta, from The Indian Express, gave the first season a rating of 3/5 saying, "For the most part, Aarya stays on course, taut, unpredictable, pacey and enjoyable. I was eager to know what’s going to happen next, and that’s straight away a win." Udita Jhunjhunwala from Firspost rated season one 3.5/5 stars and said that, "Writers Sandeep Srivastav and Anu Singh Choudhary build in several plot twists and grisly moments to keep you interested, but the chaos can be infuriating at times."
