I finally got around the watching the TV Series, Shantaram on Apple TV. It’s a pretty good series shot in India, starring Charlie Hunnam. Though it has a few problems in its story development, like I would care about such things, as per all of you movie critics out there attacking my filmmaking style and myself about such matters.
 
Overall thought, it truly illustrates the grittiness and violence that happens in India. …Like I have long said, India is one of the most violent places on the earth. Anyway…
 
The series concludes with Hunnam’s character being bound by rope, with his hand tied above his head. As he is hanging there, he is being beaten by a police officer by what sounds to be a chain. Very violent and a penetrating scene. The kind you just don’t want to think about.
 
As he is hanging there, being beating, the message comes on the screen, “To be continued.”
 
Obviously, they planned to do a second season of the show. But, after reading about the series, it was apparently not well received, and the series ended with that horrible image. My lady says, “That means his beating is what is to be continued.” She was obviously being tongue in cheek. But, that was it. Pretty much the last image placed in your mind.
 
Now, there have been a few series I remember that have ended with a major cliff hanger. And, though they obviously planned to continue the storyline, the show got cancelled, so the audience was just left to wonder, “What if…”
 
And sure, it’s just a TV show. It’s not real. But, what does that say about life, reality, who control what and why? If someone has the power to first of all create something, as negative as that something may be, and then to just let it lay there, permeating though space and time having concluded, “Not to be continued,” with no positive outcome.
 
This is why I don’t like horror films. This is why, so often, when I see someone being hurt or tortured or whatevered in a film or on TV, I just turn it off.
 
It is never good to put negativity out there, on any level. Be it real or be it fiction. Hurt and negativity only equals hurt and negativity. That’s the simple truth of life.
 
Think about that as you do whatever it is you do—as you create whatever it is you create. Do you wish to leave people with an image of horror and hurt in their mind? Or, do you wish to leave them with an image of love, peace, happiness, kindness, and goodness?