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‘Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain…’
(Star Plus: 8PM)
Rating *
We aren’t – but you are worse…
Yet another Vilaayati concept with yet another avatar of Shahrukh Khan on TV. He struts around the set… he flaunts his wit on the contestants… and he dimples into lots of smiles… but is that enough?
Well, we have to say it with a heavy heart –
No, it is not!
That’s because ‘Kya Aap Paanchvi…’ is an opportunity gone awry and SRK playing host-host once again is nothing but loads of déjà vu. Indeed, he has done it all and you, in turn, have seen it all. Besides, each of those look-at-me-I-am-funny attempts of his are almost tragic. The hallmark SRK spontaneity this time is laboured and mostly, he seems to be going through the motions with only that SRK swagger to carry the show through.
But that’s hardly enough.
After all, what do us mortals expect from ‘Paanchvi…’ or any other game/quiz show for that matter. Well, the prime-most component that is a must for it to hook and then the hold (which is far more difficult, actually) the viewers, is the build-up of intensity. Remember KBC, when Amitabh Bachchan would fiddle with the candidate, the options, the lifelines etc. to whip up gripping intensity. That won’t let the viewer budge from his seat!
‘Paanchvi…’ has none of that!
Even those moments of answering the question are treated more as a circus than anything else. But fun, frolic and horsing around are, in matter of fact, merely frills and add-ons to make a show of this tenor still more interesting – they cannot be the show, itself! And when you start taking your jokes too seriously and think that your one-liners can sail you through 60 minutes of television – you are in trouble.
That’s the malaise of ‘Paanchvi…’ it needs more meat to itself than what is presently there.
The show is designed as a Paathshaala (ah, the obscure word has really gained currency thanks to Rang De Basanti), where a flock of perky kids sit waiting their turns to be chosen by a contestant as his/her deliverer and saviour.
The kiddos are all livewires, particularly Dheirya, Milanjeet and Sriporna with the Harry Potterish Dheirya being the cynosure of all eyes. They are a brilliant bunch – far better then most of the contestants or SRK himself.
As the format has it, the contestants are asked questions from the syllabi of 1st to 5th standard and even as it may look like a child’s play, it actually is not! Time and again, the contestants have to resort to ‘Cheats’ (substitute for ‘Lifelines’) and do Taank-Jhaank or ‘Copy’ the little wonder sitting beside. The kiddo’s answer would almost infallibly be correct and that is instrumental in making the contestant pocket the fat prize for the question he/she didn’t have a clue about. It is another matter that your heart goes out to the masterly moppet, who wins nothing despite a correct answer. Indeed, shouldn’t the bachcha/bachchi be getting it rather than the cheat.
Anyway, that’s the format and no point in quarrelling with that.
In fact, the idea here is to run down the adults for getting so hopelessly helpless at such low grader questions as to choose copying from a kid. Initially, it may raise a titter of two, but soon enough, it starts wearying you down and you don’t care anymore.
Just to give you a glimpse about the rumbling, fumbling and tumbling of the adults – when KJo came with Rani (you know, those typical cards up the SRK sleeve), he was totally flummoxed at such questions as ‘What is Sagar-maatha?’ And he yelped, ‘We know Bharatmata – but what is Sagar-maatha?’
KJo reminds us that after taking a beating at the popularity charts, the Paanchviwalas have decided to go in far the usual celeb-ticket to success and therefore, to arrest the eyeballs, it has pencilled in a slew of celebrities like Karan Johar, Rani Mukherjee, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor and others of their ilk.
But merely stuffing a show with celebrities cannot set you on a roll. That’s why Paanchvi refuses to take off even after so much of stardust being sprinkled on it.
The need of the show is to spruce up its act by making the format more fleshy and for Shahrukh to reinvent himself or else he would find it more and more difficult to come up trumps in this gold-digger of a business i.e. being a TV-host. For starters, he could do with brushing up his language and stop pronouncing ‘B’ in the word ‘Lamb’ (it is taught in Grade-5, no?)
Technically, too, surprisingly it is just a serviceable fare with none or little exceptional strokes in its execution. And that actually is strange as it comes from that proven stallion of this race, Siddharth Basu and his stable, the Synergy productions. Both have a redoubtable past record of such shows, including the path-breaking KBC, produced with rare flourish.
So shall we say that ‘Paanchvi…’ suffers from production fatigue also, besides the viewers’ fatigue that seems to have long set in for such shows, what with even the mythical bonanza, KBC falling flat in its later comings in comparison to the first one? Isn’t it all the more reason for such showwalas to pull up their socks or else the writing on the wall is clear.
In sum, if you are dangerously SRK-struck, you may take the risk of flittering away a whole hour of your precious evening on this humdrum fare – otherwise, make remote your friend.
- Vierendra Bhargav
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