Dahan: Raakan Ka Rahasya · Season 1 · Disney+ Hotstar
Dahan: Raakan Ka Rahasya Season 1
Dahan: Raakan Ka Rahasya Season 1 is a WORTH-IT, BollyMeter 7.1/10. 9 episodes on Disney+ Hotstar from 16 September 2022.
Updated
What BollyAI Thinks
Vikranth Pawar's nine-episode supernatural thriller premiered on Disney+ Hotstar in September 2022 and found an audience large enough to warrant a re-release under the title Bhay in 2023. The premise is a genuine idea: an IAS officer driven by scientific rationalism is sent to a village where a mining project has stalled, finds herself inside a mythic belief system about a creature called Raakan, and discovers the bodies keep piling up in ways her rationalisms cannot explain. Tisca Chopra anchors the series with the kind of committed, understated authority the role demands - critics at Outlook India singled out her performance and the show's writing team for particular praise. DNA India called it 'an unpredictable ride,' which captures both the show's asset (genuine plot surprise) and its liability (first half pacing that several critics found slow before the mythology clicked into gear). Saurabh Shukla as the village pramukh is a scene-stealing counterweight.
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The Room
“The best part about 'Dahan' is the writing - the writing of the show by Nisarg Mehta, Shiva Bajpai, and Nikhil Nair is superb.”
Outlook India
Standout Episodes
The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.
- E1Yahan Kabhi Barsaat Nahi Hoti7.2
The premiere establishes the drought-blighted village and the ideological collision between Avni Raut's state-certified rationalism and a community whose lived experience of the Raakan curse is encoded in their daily behavior. Pawar's direction favours slow dread over jump scares - the right call for this material.
The moment: Avni's first encounter with the Raakan shrine - the moment she is forced to account for something that does not fit her evidence framework.
- E6Raakan-Raakan, Ridhiyakan7.6
The mid-season episode where the mythology crystallises and the show stops hedging about what it is - a supernatural thriller with genuine conviction in its own rules. The highest individually rated episode on IMDb at 7.6/10, and the point where the show's mythology stops hedging and commits fully.
The moment: The sequence where the village's collective memory of the Raakan events is rendered as flashback - the show's mythology given its most concrete visual expression.