|
 After
the deluge, they decided to stay away from the rouge…
Zee's prestigious Rabba - Ishq Na Hove got swept away
by the tidal rains in Mumbai. They had to re-telecast the
premiere episode.
The second episode that came on a week later had me all confused.
The protagonist Veera is so arrogant she makes Scarlett O'Hara
look like Shirley Temple. Veera frowns, flares her nostrils,
rolls her eyes and sneers at everyone from her dear stepfather
to her not-so-dear Prince Storming.
The guy Vivan stands in the pouring Mumbai rain, gives her
flowers, fixes her electricity-only to have her blow her fuse
on him at his birthday party where she entered with a flower
in her hand (and of course the ubiquitous sneer on her face)
and then slapped him so hard we could hear the echo all the
way to our homes.
What an insufferable woman! But played by a fairly competent
actress. Wish the same could be said about the guy who plays
her besotted suitor. He narrows and widens his eyes successively
to express urgent love. Wish he knew how to go beyond the
eye trick.
****
|
|
Nowadays any one can become a TV star. All you need
is eye contact and loads of lip gloss.
And
why is love in the soaps always a matter of life and
death - life for the lovers, death for viewers?
Jassi didn't get married after all. But Kaun Banega
Crorepati 2 was off to an incredibly auspicious
start. The host-with-the-most returned in a dapper
avatar, took stock of the situation, and immediately
plunged into his job. The contestants were often nervous,
and almost always in awe of Mr Bachchan.
He's seen making amazing attempts to make his contestants
feel at home. When one of them answered a question
on Sholay Mr B replied, "I had a small
role in the film."
|
Ahem
ahem.
 Funniest
moment so far: a contestant's phone-in-a-friend screaming
out compliments strung together in the form of Mr B's films'
and then finally not being able to answer the question.
"Please introduce me to this gentleman later,"
His Wryness told the contestant.
****
There's a titillating triangle brewing in Star Plus' Milee.
The maid and the heir, and then there's the Other Man who
calls Milee into his working room, pretends to paint her
face, dopes her with coffee, and then after she falls on
the bed pretends to be sleeping with her.
This
is the Mills & Boon equivalent of a sex tragedy. But
the events and misunderstandings keep getting cleared up
in no time at all. Milee is fast-moving, so fast
that the emotions of the young girl seem to be glimpsed
from a speeding train. Freeze that blur.
Suddenly I find myself swamped with horror shows. The corniest
of the lot is Zee's Rooh. This week there was a story
about a petrified woman who keeps seeing her dead mother-in-law
everywhere. The old (dead) lady kept hovering over the Bahu,
lurking in corners, evesdropping into her telephone conversations.
Probably accompanying the young woman to the potty too.
You never know how far these batty spooks can go.
How sad to see television glamorize Dawood Ibrahim's daughter's
wedding reception. Both Star News and Aaj Tak got the same
Pakistani correspondent to fill them up on who's who at
the do. Unfortunately there was nothing much to say because
there weren't too many guests of honour at the shindig.
But why did we need to have a blow-by-blow account of first
the wedding and then the reception of a known and wanted
criminal? When we glamorize criminals we also glamorize
the crime.
A Hindi news channel actually followed Aamir Khan to Locarno
for the screening of Mangal Pandey. But the correspondent
seemed at a loss about what to ask. Some of the locals,
struggling with the English, said more penetrating things
about the film than they weren't really asked.
Star News got truly lurid this week. They went to town with
an email supposedly written by Karisma Kapoor to her husband.
Dunno when Karisma became so computer savvy. Before marriage
she didn't touch the darned thing. Also the language and
the content - both telecast through a trembling Karisma
sound-alike voice played at a high pitch - sounded way too
stilted.
By over-dramatizing the prized catch (the email) Star News
killed a lot of the actual impact of the content which was
actually very heartrending. Too bad, Star News turned the
tragedy into a rigged tamasha.
 Where
does the newsworthiness of a personal tragedy become fodder
for sensationalism? Hard to say. But is it fair to turn
a celebrity's personal life into a soap opera? In comparison
Star's Shanno Ki Shaadi looks far less shambolic.
I'm happy to see the ultra-gifted Divya Dutta back on the
medium. She has a way of lighting up the medium, making
us thankful for the gift of subtlety and delicacy, barely
visible in other actors.
This ugly duckling-turns-into-a-swan tale will take time
to grow on us. But is Shanno supposed to be funny
or partially poignant?
It took me a while to figure out that the purported mirth
of LOC isn't always laughable. The two principal
actors Manoj Pawa and Sanjay Mishra playing the Indian and
Pakistani are uniformly watchable, though their respective
spouses need to get themselves new costumes and and attitudes
to match.
This week Vivek Shouq dropped in as a Sikh in transit. As
the two wives busied themselves in the kitchen a peculiar
ode to the road to patriotism unfolded.
Funny, but the sitcom has suddenly become defunct on television.
It isn't even funny anymore.
(The
views expressed here are those of the author and indiantelevision.com
need not necessarily subscribe to the same)
|
|
