Shortly after rural comedy series Panchayat returned with its fourth season on Prime Video Tuesday, netizens found themselves divided, with some praising the storyline and many calling Season 4 “underwhelming”.
“No doubt, the Panchayat series has a unique charm. But what happened in Season 4? They even made them lose the election. We want reality, but not this much. If this is what we want to see, why not watch local news channels? No conclusion, nothing just left us feeling sad,” wrote an X user, expressing disappointment with the season’s climax.
Another social media user took to X to criticise the season’s lacklustre storyline. “Panchayat Season 4 lost its comic charm and leaned too much into politics. While emotional moments were decent, the signature humour was missing. A few standout scenes, but overall it felt dragged and lacked spark. Had potential, but underwhelming,” he wrote.
Panchayat Season 4 is directed by Deepak Kumar Mishra in collaboration with Akshat Vijaywargiya. Featuring Jitendra Kumar, Raghubir Yadav, Ashok Pathak and Neena Gupta in key roles, the series follows the journey of engineering graduate Abhishek Tripathi, who ends up working at a panchayat office in a remote village, Phulera, after failing to find a job of his calibre.
In Season 4, Manju Devi (Neena Gupta) faces off against Kranti Devi (Sunita Rajwar) in an election for the post of village pradhan.
Season 4 is produced by Arunabh Kumar, who has backed the previous seasons as well.
A number of netizens gave the latest season a thumbs up. “Panchayat Season 4 is here and it’s pure emotion,” wrote a fan on X, while another posted, “Panchayat season 4 is here and with 2 minutes in the first episode, u get the feeling that they have cooked again.”
An X user also called Season 4 an improvement over the previous season, which hit Prime Video on May 28 last year. “Just finished the 4th episode and all I can say is... Panchayat 4 > panchayat 3 Absolutely loving this season. Great comeback,” he wrote.
Not all complaints were about the show’s content. Several social media users also expressed frustration over Prime Video’s new ad policy. “I was watching Panchayat Season 4, and I experienced 3 ad breaks each having 2 long ads (30 s+) @PrimeVideoIN you have pathetically ruined the User Experience so much that I shut down the laptop mid episode. @JioHotstar also has ads but is not so annoying,” he wrote.
Season 1 of Panchayat premiered on Prime Video in April 2020. The show won the inaugural best web series (OTT) award at the 54th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in November last year.
