Another feather in Sony’s reality cap piyushroy
Posted online: Apr 02, 2008 at 1705 hrs

: Mr & Ms TV
Monday - Thursday, 10pm; Sony TV
In the glut of me-too reality shows, expect Sony to once again come up with something that has a hint of novelty. Be it in their adapted formats from abroad (Big Boss and Indian Idol) or in their improvisation of desi concepts from other channels (Comedy Ka Circus), the channel once again with Mr & Ms TV proves that some thinking at least does happen in their offers on the reality platform, the disappointment of K for Kishore notwithstanding.
So what’s it all about? You have a bunch of TV stars, six male and female each with an interesting mix of diverse personality profiles competing for the title of Mr and Ms TV. And they really have to sweat it out for the same, putting to test their abilities across the whole hog of an actor’s repertoire - emoting, dancing, singing, ready wit, mime and even dubbing. Each of the contestants has his or her own individual strengths and weaknesses, to mark which after a long time we finally get to see a jury seriously on job. While actress Sonali Bendre as a first time reality show judge impresses in her matter-of-fact strictness, director Madhur Bhandarkar ably carries further his no nonsense judge act from Zee Cine Star Ki Khoj. For a change, the judging duo isn’t sitting to just fight or shower praise with an attitude of anything goes as long as our films get some lime light.
The show’s other thankful differential lies in its doing away with the audience voting and in its fast-paced format, winding up within a fortnight. Host Sonali Nagrani is adequate, but the drama onstage especially courtesy Purvi, Karanveer (aka Manoj Vohra) and Swapnil is enough to keep it going sans any forced backstage brouhaha.
Verdict
More power to such fast formatted, non-audience voting reality shows with some serious judging on display. If this works, then perhaps we are ready for the next level of reality show on Indian telly that’s high on content and low on gimmicks.

An interesting format gone waste
Yeh Hai Jalwa
Sunday, 8pm, 9X
The idea behind this one more dance-based reality show could have held a glimmer of hope. After all it has nine TV celebrities helming a team of five, each of which represents a particular segment from the society like working professionals, college kids, housewives, street urchins, foreigners, amongst others (interesting).
But then it’s the show’s addiction to a famous face that makes it a high on dejavu, predictable me-too, since most of its celebrity dancing gurus have been shaking more than a leg on other dance based reality shows (Ronit Roy, Prachi Desai, Husain Kuwajerwala, Rakhi Sawant) and myriad telly award functions in the recent past. Sawant’s get-up as a guy in one of the recent Jalwa dances, even looked a direct lift from one of her Nach Baliye 3 acts.
With the camera concentrating on the actor performer and the dance acts being star driven (notable exceptions being Rakhi Sawant and Sharad Malhotra’s acts in the first competition episode) one hardly gets to see the mettle of their team members. It would be interesting to see the team members take centre stage instead of being reduced to another set of mere dancing extras. Leader-team interactions beyond mere snapshots and name introductions too could help the audience connect with the participants because without them, the show as of now seems nothing more than a celebrity gush fest.
As regards the show’s USP of replacing a permanent jury with a junta ka voice, can we have a non-star struck fan doing the job with greater visibility unlike the house wife turned judge in one of the recent episodes who just disappeared after commenting on the first two acts. So once again the platform of evaluation, here too is hijacked by film star judges visiting the show to promote their films, making the maximum noise.
Continuing on the noise factor, hosts Smriti Irani and Sakshi Tanwar seem to be the only ones making the most of it as of now. However, the telly bahu duo is quite engaging and even entertaining in their debut anchor act together. The lone star in the review belongs to them.
Verdict
Could become worth a watch if it manages to truly exploit its differential.