Thursday is usually a dull night for television. None of the best shows or good movies are scheduled for a Thursday, because they are all slotted for the weekend. But Times Now – where the action begins – dissolved all ennui last night. All thanks to Arnab Goswami and his Panellists Surround Sound System, who unerringly succeed in giving me a headache. Last night was no different.

Yesterday, Goswami decided to give us the desi version of How To Get Away With Murder. And much like the original show, this one also had a protagonist who solves the murders – and occasionally has a breakdown – who is helped by a trusty if forgettable colleague, and has a support cast of equally forgettable people. We’ll ignore the minor detail that one is fictional and Goswami’s show is supposed to be, well, news.

Goswami, star of The Newshour, has got his hands on tapes of phone conversations that had been recorded by Peter Mukerjea’s son and Sheena Bora’s fiancé, Rahul Mukerjea while Rahul was trying to trace her.

As a result, this is what Goswami had in store for us:

It was a “Super Exclusive”, with “explosive tapes that reveal a sordid murder saga”. Tickers told us about “Rahul’s mega outburst” and how the “persistent son exposes the father”.

It’s no surprise Goswami milked the tapes for all they’re worth. After all, Times Now was the only ones – other than the Central Bureau of Investigation – to have them. And any discussion on this murder is bound to get you eyeballs and target rating points (TRPs). Some would argue that it was one helluva deal: we were promised “120 minutes of sex, deceit and murder” and got four hours of coverage. I entered the game late, at 9pm, by which time more than 90 minutes had already played out. I retired hurt at 11.15pm, after watching the programme for two hours, having been yanked between the hilarious, the ludicrous and the plain absurd.

First: the panel. Ten people were assembled to hear the tapes and judge criminality. These were not criminal experts, or former murderers, or family or friends of the Mukerjea-Bora clan. Of course not. Instead, we got the expertise of people who are, effectively, career panellists. I recognised author Advaita Kala, biscuit queen Nina Pillai, Page 3 editor Simi Chandoke, Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Shazia Ilmi, disgruntled ex-employee of the Mukerjeas, Ravina Raj Kohli, and my all-time favourite, TV model of the ’90s, Naseer Abdullah. There were two gentlemen, neither of whom I’ve seen before, but seemed to be lawyers, but could well have been Goswami’s neighbours for all the insight they provided. Lawyer Abha Singh, stepped in and out of the jury, during the four-hour marathon.  

I understand Goswami is selling a show and he will do whatever is needed to make it a bestseller. He was accompanied by Megha Prasad, who is Times Now’s Mumbai Bureau Chief and has the distinction of chasing Rahul Mukerjea through Mumbai airport last year, screaming at him to make a statement, while he politely kept dodging her.

The question though is, since when did an editor of the society pages become an expert on murder or criminality? Or a former employee or author or model become specialists on criminal behaviour or journalistic investigation? While Goswami has a very good reason to be on this panel, as does Prasad, what explains the presence of the others? To set aside three hours of your evening, to sit on a panel discussing a topic (getting at best one minute’s worth of words in) that has no bearing on your field of work – it’s difficult to tell whether this shows TV news’ desperation or the yawning emptiness in the panellists’ schedules.  

The tapes – which are damning and quite clearly show that Peter was batting for Indrani – were played for this motley crew. Then they shared their esteemed insights. This was also when you realised that this could be a show for the blind. Before playing the tapes, Goswami made declarations like “now the plot will thicken” and “we now have a clincher”. He’d also – in case we are hard of understanding – recap the events of the tape after it had been played, with comments like “Indrani tries hard. She’s desperate by now. But it doesn’t work. By this time, Rahul loses his cool”. Any second, you thought he’d ask two of the panellists to join him in enacting the tapes for us.

Abdullah gave us his analysis, as did Kala and Pillai and Chandoke. Raj Kohli was forgotten for most of the show. The two gentlemen, one of whom was dressed in a shiny glittery maroon jacket (in a nod to the show being co-sponsored by Raymond?), made statements such as, “It’s clear. Peter has done it. What kind of father tells his son to go eat and relax after this kind of conversation?” What also speaks highly of this esteemed panel is that each time some hideous excerpt from the tape was played out, while yours truly cringed at what Peter and Indrani have put their children through, the panellists would be giggling, smirking and rolling their eyes. It was entertainment, apparently.

In between, the CBI spokesperson Devpreet Singh was beamed into the show and asked to comment on what the CBI was doing. She refused to explain anything. That a news anchor would first ask and then mock the CBI for not answering his presumptuous questions on primetime TV, speaks volumes about what we think of the CBI and of course, the news channel and anchor. And then Times Now lost the link – and the plot. Goswami said he’d call Singh from his personal mobile, but those damned Indian telecoms did him in.  All he got was a message that her phone was out of network area.    

Mikhail Bora, ex-Bangla Bigg Boss contestant also made an appearance and Inquisitor Goswami didn’t think it important to ask Bora why Bora had not reported his sister’s disappearance for so many years. He could have at least praised Bora for not just participating in Bigg Boss, but also discussing his mother and sister in great detail on the show.

The “real clincher” though, was when Rabin Mukerjea, Peter’s other son was dialled into on the show. Arnab thinking he’d managed a coup – two sons selling out their father  on air – asked Rabin the crucial questions. “Can your father talk to dead people?” and “You know your father murdered Sheena. Say it!”

But Rabin didn’t oblige and instead – after telling Goswami his question was silly – accused Goswami of passing entertainment off as news. While Goswami was turning red in the face, Rabin also asked him to explain why Goswami didn’t mention that Goswami’s wife is writing a book on Indrani, and has been meeting her and going with her to court?

That turned out to be more interesting information than the tapes, which only corroborate what most of us have suspected – that Peter was in the know of Sheena’s murder.

The good thing is that Goswami lived up to his showman image and that Times Now is providing employment for all its panellists. My suggestion for the next episode of The Newshour on the Sheena Bora case, is that Goswami should get the cast of Dark Chocolate on as panellists. They may just have more inputs than Naseer Abdullah and the other panellists we were made to endure last night.