Escaype live is an Indian Hindi Language science fiction thriller web series created and directed by Siddharth Kumar Tewary. Co-writer of the series is Jaya Misra. Gayathri Gill and Rahul Tewary are the co-producers. Made under the production house one life studios, this action thriller explores the lives of five regular Indians as they struggle to win the competition on the social media app Escaype Live. The story delves into the subject of social media toxicity and how people are ready to cross all limits to win the competition and gain fame. The series also undertake many social issues like molestation, workplace exploitation, injustice against LGBTQ groups, illegal medical practices, etc.

This nine-part series is both entertaining and fast-paced due to its busy narrative. However, some of the enchantment has worn off due to the fact that the show has too many characters and their reel and real-life stories served one after another for the viewers.

In terms of acting, Krishna played by Siddharth is a software engineer who is hired by escaype live as a moderator. Through his character, the makers threw light on the difficulties faced by a few employees whose religious and traditional ethics collide with their work and they find it hard to carry on with the work. From banning fetish girl to falling in with her kind heart, his character comes a long way. He doesn’t get along with his boss Gia (Waluscha) as he couldn’t compromise his ethics. Further problems escalate when he finds out about the love affair of her sister Srini (Mallika Singh) with a Muslim guy Sarfarz. Whether he accepts his sister’s affair or not seems to be one of the highlights of season 2.

The story of Rani aka Dancing Rani (Aadya Sharma) made us realize how mobiles and social media are ruining our children’s childhood. The way her own uncle Nandu Mama (Jagjeet Singh Sandhu) exploits her talent to earn a bounty of money by fooling his docile sister sita (Geetika Vidya) taught us how greed can make a person blind. Rani on her way to finding fame loses her innocence and she can go to any length to win the competition. Talking of performance, she literally surprised everyone. She truly had become a ‘Big Girl’. Her Face-off with Fetish girl (Plabita Borthakur), her tussle with darkie (Sumedh Mudgalkar), and her rescue by inspector Devna (Akanksha Singh) was well shot. Sumedh Mudgalkar really surprised the audience by taking up the role of a psychopath Dark Angel aka Darkie. His character is as Dark as his name. His evilness is reflected through his eyes. He is an outspoken influencer who doesn’t shy away from making fun of people’s poverty and judges everyone only on the basis of money and beauty. He resembled the many social media influencers who think they are a celebrity and can go to any length to maintain their fame. Dhruv (Anagh Jain) and his family (Aditi Govitrikar and Ashwin Mushran) fall prey to his evil plans. His act of creating a fake id for evil intentions was totally relatable to today’s scenario.

Ritvik Sahore played the role of a poor guy with big dreams named Nilesh aka Amcha Spider. Suffering from poverty and working at a store to earn money just enough for survival, he dreams of being a successful influencer with the launch of escaype live. He leaves his job where he has to compromise his self-respect and start performing dangerous stunts on Escaype. His performance earns him top positions but destiny has its own plans. The emotional scene between Amcha and his father (Sanjay Narvekar) touched our hearts and taught us to respect our parents and their profession. It’s ok to have ambitions but we hold no right to disrespect the work of our parents. Plabita Borthakur played the role of Hina. Earning money for survival by working at a restaurant, Hina gets a ray of hope to fulfill her dream of a life abroad with Escaype Live. Thus, the hardworking Hina of real-life gets into the skin of a seductive fetish girl online. As expected, within no time she gains humongous followers and likes. But we get an insight into her life where Hina is just the opposite of a fetish girl. But it’s her dreams that make her do it. The trouble starts when her Boss Mala ( Swastika Mukerjee) starts molesting and harassing her. Hina gets entangled in this trouble because of her online avatar fetish girl. Her love angle and betrayal of Krishna Rangaswamy (Siddharth) was one of the main highlights of her journey.

Rajkumar played by Rohit Chandel is a picture-perfect character. But the twist comes when it is revealed that real-life Rajkumar is actually the popular escaype live contest Meena who has a huge fan following. Trying to figure out his sexuality, he resorts to Meena to Escape the fears of society and live the life he dreams about. He finds a solid support system in the form of Sunaina (Shweta Tripathi) who is the first person to whom Rajkumar confides his secret. Shweta played an outspoken, confident, and fearless girl. She continuously guides and encourages Rajkumar to live his life to the fullest. She is that one friend that we all need in our life.

‘Escaype Live’ briefly addresses social inequality and transgender acceptance. Kudos to Siddhath Kumar Tewary and Jaya Misra for presenting us with one of the rarest topics. Escaype Live stands out because of its superb execution. Social issues are handled very carefully here. A cliffhanger ending paved way for the season 2 of the series which we will eagerly wait for.