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In
the DD days of yore, New Year's eve programming used to be an event
looked
forward to by viewers. Mumbai
Doordarshan, which used to get its share of 31 December airtime upto an hour or
so before midnight, would pack in interesting skits, songs and dances amid incisive
year-enders - all shorn of the glamour that comes with sponsored, ad filled shows,
but innocent and entertaining all the same. Satellite television has mutilated
New Year's eve programming beyond repair.  This
year's programming was enough to make one wish one was instead celebrating among
the drunks caught in the traffic jams of Mumbai's highways, or jostling the crowds
at a packed suburban restaurant for a glass of wine. There were countdown shows,
telecasts of obscure award shows, more of Sunil Pal and Raju Srivastav, and shots
of the New Year being ushered in Australia and Hong Kong on the news channels.
No one could have survived this kind of apathetic programming till midnight.
There
were innovations, true. NDTV aired hitherto hidden footage of the year
gone  by -
Barkha Dutt yawning and Prannoy Roy sticking his tongue out in mock horror (not
very original, they have done this before). And ESPN Star Sports decided to air
back-to-back episodes of its first ever soap, Full Toss. If you wanted
to spend four hours watching a cricket comedy show on 31 December and again on
1 January, you know where to go.
 There
were others like Ba, Bahu aur Baby that tried an in house game show, but
most others seemed to prefer the continuous banter of last year's laughter champions,
news channels included. Curiously, this year's winner Rauf Lala,..., does not
find many takers for his wit. Or is he busy raking in the moolah back in Pakistan?
 With
many actors on a New year's break, soaps have been taking it easy in the tracks,
no drastic turns and twists occured across channels this week, and most made do
with the minimum of the cast. The drastic twists of destiny will recur once the
actors, refreshed from their breaks, return to the sets, one reckons.
****
| Cricket
fatigued  ESPN's
Full Toss, a novel idea for a sports channel, has the potential and almost
seems to pull it off. But even a veteran producer-director like Rajeev Mehra is
likely to be constrained when asked to churn out episode after episode on a single
sport. The cast is formidable - the best names of the comedy genre seen on Indian
TV and theatre are present and do justice to their roles. But the incisive wit
that marks Mehra's other venture, Naya Office Office on Star One, is disturbingly
absent here. The comedy's there, the bite isn't.
**** |
Smile
on! Star
One's Kadvi Khatti Meeti continues to be enjoyable, mainly because the
leads act so effortlessly. The newly inducted bahu, who was not present in the
original series, has blended in well with the Tu Tu Main Main pair of Reema
and Supriya, and is now matching them quip for quip, pout for pout. That's no
mean task. Both of Star One's second seasons with comedy shows, Office Office
and now Kadvi... have managed to sustain interest without looking like
pale versions of the originals.
****
 Couch
potoato's promo of the week - The Shah Rukh one for KBC's new season.
Slick, witty and for the unsuspecting first time viewer, a pleasant surprise.
Here's looking forward to K..K..K...KBC.
(The
views expressed here are those of the author and indiantelevision.com need not
necessarily subscribe to the same) |
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