MUMBAI: Four new shows and not one soap among them. This could happen only on SABe TV, the relief channel as it calls itself. After taking DD metro by storm, it's now SABe TV's turn to get a facelift with four shows launching in August.
The channel has appropriately hyped them with the catchline - "SABe Ka August Zabardast". But comedy, of course, will remain the channel's driving force.
Of these shows, Raamkhilavaan (C.M.) 'n' Family is the most hyped of all. Produced by veteran comedy writer, Aswani Dheer, whose Office Office is still creating ripples on the channel, Raamkhilavaan is a political satire inspired loosely by Laloo Yadav's family (though those behind the show will tell you otherwise).
The protagonist Raamkhilavaan, played by Vineet Kumar, sports a ruffled hairstyle very similar to Laloo's. He speaks in a chaste Bhojpuri accent and has with him a huge group of daughters, his wife Imarti Devi and a streetsmart brother-in-law Puttan Yadav, whose exploits keep landing the CM in trouble. The show, a bi-weekly premieres on 5th August at 8:30 pm.
The other shows include a supernatural thriller, Search, another old comedy that is being revived Yes Boss and a game show Lootmall.
Search, which stands for "Scientific experiments and research of cosmic happenings" is a quest to unravel the explanation behind an unnatural happenings that are not logical. Search is a daily that starts telecast on 12 August at 9:00 pm.
Yes Boss, which was once a channel driver with its hilarious situations involving a enamoured boss, a helpless husband and a wife caught in a Catch 22 situation is also being revived, albeit with a new character playing the boss. The show starts 21 August and will be telecast every Wednesday and Thursday at 8:30 pm.
Last but not the least in the offing is what SABe TV describes as the "Mother of all game shows" Lootmall. The show marks the TV debut of actor Chunky Pandey. Chunky, who made a brief appearance at the launch informed that it would be an interactive show where teams would comprise family members of two persons each (they could be father-son, brother-sister or even relatives). More information on what the show would be like is awaited as its footage was not available. The show premieres 23 August and will be telecast every Friday at 8:00 pm.
While on the face of it, Sabe TV has indeed lined up some very impressive shows, the coming weeks will show how far they go in upping the channel's viewership.
