General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

FLAMES

FLAMES (also written Flames) is an Indian Hindi-language coming-of-age romantic comedy web series created by the digital studio The Viral Fever (TVF) under its Timeliners brand, telling the story of two teenagers, Rajat and Ishita, who fall in love while preparing for their school examinations at a tuition center. It premiered on January 5, 2018 and ran for four seasons through December 21, 2023.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Story-based Hindi web series in the comedy, drama, and romance genres, produced in India by TVF's Timeliners¹
Run	Premiered January 5, 2018; four seasons; last episode aired December 21, 2023¹
Episodes	5 episodes per season by TheTVDB's count (20 total); JustWatch lists Season 1 as 6 episodes¹^•³
Platforms	Season 1 on TVFPlay, Season 2 on Amazon MX Player, Seasons 3 and 4 on Prime Video⁴
Lead cast	Ritvik Sahore as Rajat, Tanya Maniktala as Ishita, Sunakshi Grover as Anusha, Shivam Kakar as Gaurav Pandey¹
Reception	IMDb rating 8.8/10 from about 34,000 votes⁵
Runtime	About 30 minutes per episode¹

Spoilers

Premise and setting

The series follows Rajat, nicknamed Rajjo, and Ishita, two teenagers who meet at a coaching center and gradually fall in love while preparing for their examinations.² The first season is set in a tuition center in West Delhi where students of 11th and 12th standard come to study Maths and Chemistry, and it is narrated by the head of the coaching center, played by Deepesh Sumitra Jagdish.⁶ The title plays on the FLAMES schoolyard game (paper fortune game predicting Friends, Love, Affection, Marriage, Enemies), and the show's tagline describes "a young romance unfolding as a chemical reaction."¹

Two supporting relationships run alongside the central romance: Rajat's best friends Pandey and Anusha, whose own friendship turns into a relationship over the first season.⁷ The show also treats the characters' families and academic pressure as central concerns, including how parents push their children to perform extraordinarily in their studies.⁸

Seasons

Season 1 (2018). The first season aired on TVFPlay from January to February 2018 and follows Rajat's journey from infatuation to dating his crush Ishita.⁴^•⁹ The Indian Express noted at its launch that the show taps into 1990s nostalgia through its selection of romantic Hindi film songs, even though the story is set in the present day.⁶

Season 2 (2019). The second season premiered in October 2019, moving to Amazon MX Player.⁴ It shows Rajat and Ishita navigating relationships with parents and working toward career choices, set at what the Indian Express review called the dawn of smartphones; the makers never explicitly fix the era, since the characters also discuss Thor and Thanos.⁹ Writer Kunal Aneja kept the narrative simple, and the episode titles, such as "Kuch Toh Hua Hai" and "Chhukar Mere Mann Ko", take their names from popular Bollywood romantic songs.⁹

Season 3 (2022). The third season arrived on Prime Video in October 2022, two years after the previous season in story time. The Times of India described it as more intense, focusing on the characters' maturation as they balance their relationship, their 12th-grade exams, and career choices.²

Season 4 (2023). The fourth season streamed on Prime Video in December 2023, with the final five episodes airing on December 21, 2023.¹^•⁷ The Times of India gave it a critic's rating of 3.0 out of 5, calling it a satisfying continuation that offers a relatable portrayal of the joys and challenges of adolescence.²

Production

The series was created by The Viral Fever (TVF), the digital studio behind early Indian web originals such as TVF Pitchers and Permanent Roommates, and released under its Timeliners brand.⁸^•¹⁰ Apoorv Singh Karki directed the first season's five episodes, credited from January 5 to February 14, 2018, and Divyanshu Malhotra later joined as director; the writing credits include Deepesh Sumitra Jagdish and Saket Sharma.¹^•¹¹^•² Malhotra said he was already a fan of the series before being brought in to direct the third season.¹²

Reception and context

On IMDb the series holds a rating of 8.8 out of 10 from about 34,000 votes, with the unweighted mean of user ratings at 9.3.⁵ Episode-level ratings decline across the run: season 1 episodes average between 8.3 and 9.1, while season 4 episodes sit between 7.8 and 8.2.⁵ On JustWatch's aggregated user rating it scores 53 percent.³

The series is frequently grouped with TVF's other middle-India, slice-of-life shows. The Hollywood Reporter India's survey of Indian streaming placed Flames among the titles with which TVF, at its peak, staged "middle-Indian snapshots of nostalgia and mundanity," alongside Gullak, Yeh Meri Family, Tripling, Cubicles, Hostel Daze, and Panchayat.¹³ A Hindustan Times feature on the growth of teen romance on Indian streaming platforms cited Flames, Mismatched, and Feels Like Home as examples of shows offering innocent romance in a catalog otherwise weighted toward crime and adult drama.¹⁴

Availability

The series currently streams on Amazon Prime Video, including its ad-supported tier, in India and internationally; TVmaze records its earlier seasons on TVFPlay and MX Player.³^•⁴ JustWatch's streaming charts place it in the mid-1500s globally, with a historical peak at number 1 and 71 days in the top 10.³

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Indian and South Asian web series

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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